Pulling the Trigger

by Crazy Ivan


In the movie The Karate Kid (the original), there's this spectacular scene where Mr. Miyogi (Pat Morita) and Daniel (Ralph Macchio) are at the bad guy's dojo.  He's got this really hard core sensei  (Martin Kove) and he's giving this hard core speech about how hard core his dojo is.  He says "We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Here, in the streets, in competition: A man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy."  Because he's so hard core.


Now, in the movie, this is meant to explain why Daniel's tormentor, Johnny (William Zabka) is so ruthless about beating him up.  It's supposed to be the worst thing that his teacher could be telling him in a karate class.  It was supposed to be the kind of heartless, merciless, emotionless thing that one bad guy in a movie would teach another bad guy in a movie.

Here you see this ruthless bad guy donning the only
facial expression he uses in the movie... or his career.

Which is why I feel kind of weird giving that exact advice on this blog.


But that's exactly what I'm going to tell you tonight... when you are playing MYACH, your enemy deserves no mercy.  You have to be ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice.  Mercy will become losing really quick.  Now, if you're okay with giving a friend a win here or there, that's fine.  Noble even.  But if you're just trying to keep from beating somebody MYACH to M, you just need to suck it up and pull the trigger.


It's not that we want people to be ruthless in Myachi.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We promote respect and discipline above all other things (with confidence, patience and passion rounding out the top 5).  But if you're going to enter into a competition, you're best bet is to set mercy aside for a few minutes.


I'll give you an example of how that can go wrong for you in a heartbeat.  And I'll draw from my own experiences to make it more human.


So tonight I'm on the brawl.  I'm more distracted than usual because I'm helping Myachi Man put together this big power point presentation for a meeting tomorrow so for the first hour I have to decline all the MYACH invites.  Finally, at about a quarter after seven I'm (more or less) done with all that and Gold (or Jakeums if he'd prefer) challenges me to a game of MYACH.


Now, I do have a mercy rule in MYACH.  If I'm playing against another Myachi Master (or Mantis), I just do my best tricks and hope not to lose.  But if I'm playing against a Maniac, I have a rule: I'll never use a move that I know my opponent can't do.  For example, if I know you don't have a Toe Stall, I'm not going to call a Toe 360 on you.


That's not to say I'll go easy on everyone.  I want to challenge my opponents, but I don't want to call 4 Myachi juggles on somebody who's still learning the Matrix either.


So Gold is in a pretty high echelon for a Maniac.  I know that he's got me beat in Cross-Body moves (under the legs, yogas, behind the backs, etc.) so I can pretty much count on him getting at least one letter with some yoga/crazy leg combination and he's got enough in his arsenal to threaten me with a few other moves as well.


He strikes first and gets me an M (on exactly one of those weird yoga/crazy leg combos I was expecting) and I exacerbate the problem my missing my first set.  He misses his second and I call 3 consecutive right to left Daredevils for my second set.  I get it, he gets it.  Still down a letter.

He's kind of like this, only with a Myachi.

Eventually I battle back and get my game on straight.  I knock out two letters with foot tricks and another with a juggling combo.  And don't think I was being mean here... the dude hit the first juggling combo I threw at him and then called a 3 Myachi Juggle with an Under the Leg and a Toe Stall in it on me later.  So he can juggle.  But I've got a slight edge there (5 years earning my living as a street performing juggler).


After a long battle he gives me an unintentional break.  On 3 separate occasions he calls something with 20 behind the backs (pretzel style so you're throwing and catching back and forth behind your back) and missed on the 20th catch... actually, he only did that twice.  On the other one I think he'd added a Mojo Rising at the end and then missed that after doing 20 Pretzel Behind the Backs.


This allows me to get a big lead.  I end up with a MYAC to M score.


And then I start feeling merciful.


See, I'm feeling 99% sure that this dude doesn't have a lefty/righty Matrix.  I've only used one multi-Myachi move so I've got one more I can pull out.  I start going a bit easier.  Not easy, mind you, but easier.  I take my foot off the gas.  I don't pull the trigger.


Now, I think I'm being nice, but in retrospect I'm actually insulting JDM's skills (that's another one of his nicknames).  And he makes me pay for it.  While I'm messing around with Daring Slingshots and 2 in one hand juggles, he starts hitting some of his sets.  He finally nails the 20 Pretzel Behind the Backs and I get about 12 of them... I think.  Maybe I'm revising history there because I only got two or three and I'm trying to block that out.  It happens.

I do the same thing with high school.

He got me with something else too.  It was a Slingshot to a Mojo to a Slingshot.  I should have hit that, but I can't honestly recall ever going straight from a Mojo to a Slingshot so it was a perfect MYACH call.  I tried it for the first time and missed it (I've hit it six out of seven tries so don't go thinking you know my MYACH weakness now).


So now all of a sudden my comfortable lead is gone.  I'm up MYAC to MYA.  I say to myself, "self, it's time to pull out that lefty/righty Matrix."


I call it and Gold sighs.  He knows he's got only a very slight chance of hitting this.  But it doesn't matter.  Because I miss it.  Badly.


And now we get to the whole point of this convoluted recollection.  I didn't pull the trigger early enough.  I've messed around too long and not taken the challenge seriously enough and now he's in a very advantageous position.  If he can get one more letter on me (and I have no doubt that he could), he puts me in redemption.


If you don't know about the redemption rule, tough.  It's too long to get into now.  Suffice to say that MYACH is kind of like tennis and you kind of have to win by two.  But not really.  But kind of.  The end result of this rule is that if he earns a letter on me now, getting one letter won't win me the game.  I'll still have to get him one more time.  Maybe.  Probably.  But not definitely.

Here, the redemption rule is portrayed graphically.

What it meant, ultimately, is that I never should have held my kill shot for so long.  This was just a friendly game so it wouldn't have mattered much if I'd lost (though it would've stung my pride since I've been playing Myachi almost as long as he's been walking).  But if this was a serious competition I'd have really jeopardized myself.  One way or the other I'd just essentially given my opponent back the ball inside the two minute warning.


Luckily for me I weathered the storm.  He called a tough one but I hit it.  I managed my lefty/righty Matrix on the next set and won the game by a hair's breadth.  But the moral of this story is that there was no guarantee.  And there's never a guarantee.


If you've got a killer trick that you hit 99% of the time and your 99% sure that you're opponent will miss it 99% of the time, there are still a lot of ways that can go wrong for you.  Sure, the odds are overwhelmingly on your side.  But I can't honestly remember the last time I missed a lefty/righty Matrix. I can normally go back and forth with that all day.


But at this moment, I didn't have it.  And there's always that slight chance that you're going to miss your favorite set.  There's always a chance that you're going to take a letter that you didn't think you'd take.  There's always a chance that your opponent has gotten better since the last time you battled them.  And there's always a chance that you could lose.

There's also a chance a meteor could fall and knock your
Myachi out of the air, but it's a really, really small one.

No lead is overwhelming in a game of MYACH.  Even if you're up MYAC to nothing (the largest lead you can have without already having won) it only takes two misses on your set and three tough ones from your opponent to put you in a position where you absolutely need to letter somebody right now.


Think about that for a second.  You're up 4/nil in a game and decide it's time for the death blow.  It's a tough move (it would kind of have to be), but it's one you're really good at it.  You almost never miss.  But you do.  Twice.


That's all it takes to be in a one point game and you always have to assume that you could miss at a moment's notice.  Never take a lead for granted in a game of MYACH because if you do, it will disappear.


Now, I know I could have said that in far fewer words, but I have a rule in life.  If you can work in a Karate Kid reference, you work in the Karate Kid reference, no matter how far you then have to go to make your point.  I apologize, but I can't honestly say that I won't do it again.

Legal MYACH Combo Adds

by Crazy Ivan

In the wild, wild West days of MYACH we played no-holds-barred.  This came to a quick end back in 2005 when some players decided to add in tricks that, while tangentially related to Myachi, relied almost entirely on non-Myachi skills.  For example, an acrobatic competitor would do a back hand spring with a Myachi on hand, or even worse, a flip while doing a Hulk.

Eventually we came up with some clumsy rules to try to keep this aspect out of the game, but over time this became more and more cumbersome until eventually we went the opposite direction.  The rule now reads that only "approved" moves can be called in MYACH.  While no comprehensive list of these "approved" moves yet exist, there are at least 4,000 "common" moves and combos so there is no shortage of potential calls.

But to keep things interesting, challenging and surprising, we also allow for what is called a "Combo-Add".  This is a stipulation that you call during your move that makes the trick harder.  Like tricks, these Combo-Adds are restricted.  If a double jointed person decided to use "bending your elbow backwards while..." as a Combo-Add it wouldn't exactly fit with the heart of the game.

While this list is by no means complete, I figured it would be a good idea to toss out a few of the accepted Combo-Adds to give everyone an idea of what is and is not acceptable.  Below are a few of the most common Adds that you'll run into in a game of Myach:

• Weak-Side: Perhaps the most common "Combo Add", forcing a player to do a move on their weak side can easily turn a familiar move into a complex one.  Of course, like all of the combo adds below, if you call this on your opponent you'll have to do it that way as well so unless you're strong on your weak side this will be adding the same disadvantage to both players.  Note that you can't call a move "right handed" or "left footed" or anything like that.  You can only call "strong side" or "weak side" so that a left handed player and a right handed player can still have a reasonable game together. 
• No Reset: This is a common Add in a tough combo.  In a combo that requires multiple tosses and catches, a player can call "no reset", which means that you can't readjust the Myachi after the catch.  For example, if you called a Daredevil back and forth, the opponent would be allowed to make a slight adjustment after catching the first Daredevil.  If you called it "No Reset", they would have to go directly into the 2nd Daredevil from however they caught the first.
• Foot Can't Touch Down: This is usually done in conjunction with an Under the Leg or Foot Stall combo.  This is a way to make balance moves a bit tougher and it means exactly what it says.  It means that you can't put your foot back on the ground until the move is over.  Combos that use multiple Under the Leg Throws are common candidates for this Add.  A great example might be an Under the Leg to Mantis to Reverse Under the Leg.  If you don't see it right away, try this combo twice, but on the second try, don't allow yourself to step down in between the steps.
• Eyes Closed: Obviously this doesn't mean much if you add it to a trick like the Daredevil, but by forcing a player to do a move blind you can actually turn a relatively easy move into a really tough one.  This is especially effective when you're using aerials and high body stalls.
• Continuous: In some combos, the tricks will be much easier if you pause in between them.  This is particularly true of series that involve multiple stall surfaces.  If you want to add some difficulty, you can force your opponent to do the moves continuously rather than allowing them to pause and catch their breath between each stall.
• Hand/Myachi Can't go Above/Below...: This Add entered the game to stop people from doing moves in the cheapest possible manner but continues as a great Combo Add.  The first time I saw this called was against an opponent who liked to cheat his toe stalls by dropping the Myachi from about 3 inches above his toe.  His opponent started to counter by saying "Hand can't go below your waist" or "The toss has to go over your head" to ensure a real throw.  This also works great when you want someone to do something fast.  You can say "throw can't go above your head" or otherwise restrict the height of the throw.
• Tag Placement: For a lot of your "Skate Type" tricks, you can add a serious amount of difficulty just by insisting on a specific placement of the tag.  In other words, you can call that the Myachi must land with the tag facing the same way it was at the start and thereby force a more controlled spin.  This is particularly effective in variations on the Impossible or the Tre-Flip.  It can make some of the easiest moves in the game into legitimate letter-getters.
• Stall Counts: This is not a very common add, but it can be used when playing against someone who is particularly weak with a stall that you're pretty good at.  If, for example, they don't have much control of their Mantis, you can call a "count" on the Mantis portion of the trick.  For example, you could do a combo that ends in a Mantis and insist that they hold it for a 3 count.  What this means is that in order to hit the trick, they need a perfect Mantis.  Without that Combo-Add, they could hold the Mantis for less than a second and return it to the hand without penalty.  Keep in mind that all 3 counts aren't created equally, though, so expect your opponent to count as fast as possible.

Obviously there are plenty of other Combo-Adds that you could use, though these are the most common ones I encounter.  If you have a Combo-Add that you or your opponents use a lot, let me know and I can add it to the list.

Word of warning on Combo-Adds, though.  Whatever you call, you have to do as well.  Just be sure that when you use a Combo-Add you're not making the move too tough for yourself.

It should also be noted that not all Combo-Adds are legal.  I've seen some pretty silly attempts at Combo Adds (I actually had an opponent tell me that I had to do a Wolverine but my name had to be Alex at the time) so clearly there are some boundaries.  Perhaps I'll write a future article on banned Combo-Adds.  If you ever have a question about the legality of a Combo-Add, shoot me an e-mail at crazyivan@myachi.com and we'll run it by the MYACH competition committee (Monk, Animal, Bones, Noodles and I) and we'll get you an answer as quickly as we can hash one out.

The Perfect MYACH Set

by Crazy Ivan


We've discussed the game of MYACH on here several times before, but in the past we've generally talked about what not to do in a game.  Today I want to take it from the angle of what you should do if you want to become a formidable opponent.

MYACH is a game of sets and defenses.  I set a trick (I call it and then I do it) and you defend it (you match the trick I just did), then you set (you call a trick and then do it) and I defend it (I match your trick).  So obviously, there are two major ways to get better at the game.  You can get better at setting and you can get better at defending.

Getting better at defending takes a long time and a lot of practice.  There are strategies to be sure, but by and large the way to get better at defense in MYACH is to learn every trick in the game.  Being well rounded is a big part of it too, but generally speaking, the more tricks you know, the better defender you'll be.

But a blog entry on getting better at defending would be pretty counterproductive.  I would probably just give you a list of tricks and tell you to get to work.  Instead, I want to focus this blog on improving your strengths in setting the trick.

Types of Sets:

None of this is official Myachi canon or anything, but when I play MYACH, I toss my sets into 3 broad categories: Feelers, Jabs and Knock Outs.

Feelers: These are the sets I use to feel out the other player and get an idea what their strengths and weaknesses are.  The best "Feelers" are combos that use two or three different trick-types.  For example, I might call a:

"Reverse Behind the Back > Mantis > Clipper Delay"

Even if you get this move, it gives me a chance to see how confident you are with your flexibility moves, your upper-body stalls and your footwork.  If you clearly struggle to get the Reverse Behind the Back, I'll probably follow up on my next turn with a combo loaded with flex tricks.

Feelers are especially important when you're playing somebody for the first time.  If you don't know their skill level, a combo like the one above will do wonders to give you a clue what you're in for.

A few things to keep in mind when you're deciding on a Feeler are:

• You should be 100% on the combos.  Obviously you never want to set a trick you can't actually do, but on a feeler trick there should be absolutely zero chance you're gonna miss it.  These tricks should be combos that you do all the time.
• It should use several different types of tricks.  Don't just string together a bunch of moves.  Think about them before hand.  Doing a combo of three tricks that all test, let's say, somebody's low-body skills doesn't give you as much information as a more eclectic combo.
• Every trick in the combo should be challenging.  Remember, ideally you want to pick up a letter on every set.  The moves you use should be the hardest ones that you know you won't miss.

Jabs: These are the sets that I use in almost every game.  These are my signature sets that are pretty tough for just about everybody.  In Myachi there are so many different types of tricks that it seems like every player has one or two of these unique killers.  If you've ever gone into a game against a friend knowing that he was going to use tricks X, Y and Z, those tricks are probably his "jabs".

These tricks and combos should be tricks that you practice a lot.  Because there are so many different types of moves, everyone that plays Myachi for a while finds themselves gravitating toward certain types of tricks.  Eventually, you'll hit on one move that seems easier for you than it is for a lot of other people.

Let's say that move is Spiderman in your example.  Sure, everyone can do a Spiderman, but for whatever reason you're particularly good at it and you can do Double Wolverines that end in a Spiderman.  You start working all these weird crazy combos that end in a Spiderman and after a while you'll hit on a combo that you can hit pretty much every time but practically nobody else can get it consistently.

Jabs are moves that you use all the time.  They are the bulk of your repertoire if you play a lot of MYACH.  Some things good Jabs have in common are:

• You should be at least 90% on these moves.  It's okay to miss a set once in a while but you sure don't want to make a habit out of it.
• It shouldn't be any harder than it has to be.  If you've used a Feeler or two beforehand you probably already have a sense of your opponent and their skill level.  You don't want to set an Instep Kick > In-Spin > Neo if an Instep Kick > Neo would have done the trick.
• Don't play to the opponent's strengths.  Let's say you're ridiculously good at the Crazy Legs.  You've just got spectacular balance so you call a series in every game.  But now let's say you're up against a new opponent and when you used a Yoga Under the Leg in an earlier Feeler combo you noticed that they had really solid balance.  You might want to use Jabs that focus on a different skill set at first rather than just going with what you usually do.
• Don't be lopsided.  Too many players have all their Jabs in one or two trick types.  If all your best sets are either flexibility moves or upper body strikes, you're going to be in some serious trouble when you go against somebody better than you in one or both of those categories.  It's also a serious liability in Tournament Rules.

Knock Outs: The difference between a good MYACH player and a great MYACH player can come down to a few tricks and they might be tricks nobody ever sees.  Every player brings a bunch of tricks to the table and the better player isn't always the one with the best tricks in his or her bag.  Sometimes it's the person with the deepest bag.

A Knock Out trick (for the purposes of this blog entry) is a trick that you will probably only use once in all of your Myachi playing days.  It's a weird, crazy combo that virtually nobody will get without a little practice.  It's something so strange and nuanced that it takes one or two misses to see how to do it right.  It's a trick that you hold in reserve and practice when nobody's looking for days, weeks or even months just so that when you really need it, you can pull it out and guarantee yourself a letter.

Knock Out tricks aren't necessarily really hard.  In fact, very often they're relatively easy with a little practice.  The important thing is that when you use them, your opponent will not have practiced them.  A perfect example comes from a big MYACH game we played a while back at the House of Skills.  Monk was in a spot where he really needed to buffer his lead against Animal, Mav and I so he called this crazy 3 sack combo where all three Myachis eventually got tossed behind the back into a Mantis.

Now, what made this move so challenging was keeping the two Myachis balanced on your elbow while you did the behind the back toss for the third one but you didn't realize just how tricky it was until you were doing the move.  After trying it a few times I figured out the right angle for my shoulder and now I hit that move pretty much every time but it was a perfect knock out move; it lettered every one of us.

Like most good Knock Out moves, Monk will likely never use this exact same call again.  At the very least, he will never use it against Mav, Animal or me again.  There would be no point.  If the move is tough enough to letter people with after they've practiced it, it's a Jab, not a Knock Out.  The whole point of this type of move is that it is strange and unfamiliar.

Ideally, you want to make it through a game without using any of these moves.  The best thing is to have several in reserve at any time and only pull them out when strategy demands.  No point in wasting a perfectly good Knock Out move when you're down 4 letters.  Sure, you'll get the letter, but you'll still lose the game and you won't be able to use that move against the same opponent in a later game where more could be gained.

I tend to use these types of moves in one of three situations:

1. As the final blow in a well fought game.  I'll pull out a KO late to ensure victory if my opponent is good enough that I don't want to give them another set.
2. To pull ahead in a persistent tie.  I'll use a KO early if my opponent keeps hitting all my sets or neither of us are able to letter each other much in the first few rounds.  If you're playing a back and forth game a small advantage can mean everything by the end.
3. In redemption.  If you're not familiar with Redemption Rules in MYACH don't worry about this one just yet (but look to learn all about it in an upcoming entry!), but I will always use a KO in redemption if I've got one I think will work out to a letter.

-----

A great MYACH player is an unpredictable one.  If you know what to expect from somebody you can practice their moves and go into the game ready.  Nobody can prepare for chaos so by giving them something they've never seen before in a game you can almost always earn an advantage.

Look for these moves when you're shredding or practicing alone.  And when you see one, keep it close. Don't show it off until you've got it mastered and don't use it if you don't need it.  If you can get through a game just by doing tougher tricks, that should be your strategy.

But if you're going against somebody who is more experienced, more versatile or even just more skilled than you, you still have a chance.  Winning with jabs is brute force; winning from strength and skill.  Winning with knock outs is brute intellect; winning from creativity and strategy.  To be honest, I can't say which victory is more rewarding.

MYACH and the Fairness Rule

by Crazy Ivan

I finished a game of MYACH against Monk about 20 minutes ago.  I lost A to H, which is pretty good considering the opponent.  I got him with a double leg over, a 4 Myachi columns juggle and a staggered Jedi but ultimately he did me in with a weird combo that includes a high toss, an Iverson and a 2 Myachi gather on the left hand.

As we sat recovering, we started talking about the game and how it had evolved over the years and before we got 2 minutes in I knew that the conversation was going to lead to a blog.

MYACH started as the simplest game in the world.  It was just HORSE with a Myachi.  I do a trick, you match the trick.  If you miss, you get a letter.  If you spell MYACH, you lose.  Simple as that.  There weren't really any rules because the whole idea was that you could do whatever trick you wanted.

Of course, back then there were probably about a dozen people that had ever played a game of MYACH in their lives.  About 99% of games involved at least one Myachi Master and as often as not we pretty much knew who was going to win going in to the games.  We called familiar tricks with a few crazy combos, but it was a pretty predictable game.

Then Myachi started to hit in NYC and everything changed.  All of a sudden there were literally thousands of people playing the game.  This is when the rule book started to swell.

What we found was that a lot of people were kind of taking advantage of the spirit of the game.  It was supposed to be about who was the best at Myachi tricks but a lot of people were looking for ways to "game the system", so to speak.

Example?  Say you're playing against somebody who is double jointed.  They say that their trick is to toss a Myachi up, bend your elbow in a way that would require breaking your arm and then catch it.  They can do it, sure, but nobody else in the world could.  And even if they could, what did it have to do with Myachi skill?

Okay, okay, you want a more realistic example.  How about a kid who is an accomplished gymnast?  He can do all kinds of crazy gymnastic moves.  If he does one of them with a Myachi pinched in his elbow, should that count as a valid Myachi call?  It's not very realistic to expect the opponent to know some crazy gymnastic tumble and it really has very little to do with Myachi.  I can do the splits.  Should I be able to do the splits while doing a Hulk and call that in MYACH?

As the game progressed we discovered that allowing moves like this didn't make for a fun game so we instituted a new rule:

Fairness Rule, Attempt #1: Moves have to be primarily based on Myachi skill.

Now I'll admit that this is far from a perfect rule.  It is open to a lot of interpretation on both sides.  Somebody who isn't very flexible could use that rule to argue that an under the leg is more about flexibility than Myachi skill so it should be stricken from the game.  We all know that Under the Leg is a pretty basic move so that clearly shouldn't be the case.

But we hopes that the spirit of the rule would be clear.  People would see what we were getting at and they would play fair.  And by and large, that's exactly what people did.

Most people, that is.

And then there were the others who would develop long winded explanation of how somehow spinning a basketball on your finger and then setting it down while you do a Wolverine is all about the Myachi skill.  More than that, there were people who would try to invoke this rule any time a move came up that they couldn't do.

In a big way, we'd swapped one problem for an even worse one.  The game was starting to be more about who was the better lawyer than who was the better Myachi player.

So we revised the rule:

Fairness Rule, Attempt #2: Moves that rely on a skill not exemplified by any traditional Myachi move will be exempt from play.

Alright, it's a little wordier, but it was far more specific.  The list of "traditional Myachi moves" was pretty much what was in the DVD.  It made it a bit harder to call totally original tricks, but there were enough moves clearly encompassed by this definition to make games playable without having to enter an Oxford style debate.

But if you'd asked me then where the problem would come from in this iteration of the rule, I'd have said the term "traditional Myachi move" and I'd have been right.

The list of Myachi moves is constantly expanding and since this rule relies on some kind of abstract authority and new move could be challenged under this rule.  That didn't exactly cripple the game or anything, but it did kind of rob it of some of the creativity.

Beyond that, some people were also taking things to the extreme without breaking the rules.  The Super-Yoga is a fine example of that.

This is a move that requires extraordinary flexibility.  It's the kind of move even a naturally flexible person has trouble with and it's something that the majority of people could probably never do with any amount of practice.

Now, this is a trick that clearly relies more on flexibility than Myachi prowess, but doing variations on the Under the Leg is as traditional as a Myachi move gets.  The Yoga, which is a slightly less masochistic version of the same move, had been a common MYACH call for years.

So we made one final go at this whole rule thing.

Fairness Rule, Attempt #3: A MYACH call will be considered valid if the move or all moves within the trick or combo are examples of aerial moves around the Myachi, swaps, upper body stalls, lower body stalls, moves that rely on centrifugal force, moves in which the Myachi crossed over or under a body part, flips and spins of the Myachi, moves in which the Myachi passes through a portal made by the body, moves in which multiple Myachis are manipulated together, strikes and moves in which the Myachi is trapped between two surfaces of the body.


Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it does pretty much say everything we need to say.  It basically describes all  the classes of Myachi tricks and while it doesn't exactly exclude stuff like the Super-Yoga, it does say in no uncertain terms that you can't just keep a Myachi on your hand while you do a kickflip on your skateboard.

But of course, the clever base of players we have were finding way around even this rule.  Besides, it was so longwinded and overbearing that it was hard for everyone to understand.  A lot of the terms within it beg for clarification and the whole thing has sort of a sloppy desperation to it.

We essentially left things there for a really long time, but then new factors arose that really demanded a revision.  MYACH started getting a lot more popular.

-----

It's becoming clearer and clearer that regional MYACH competitions are coming soon.  Even if Myachi doesn't organize them, they'll show up.  In preparation for that I've been hard at work on the Official Rule Book for the game.  When I first set out to do it, I figured it would be at least kind of easy, but I was horribly mistaken.

Once it's complete, it will be on the "Pages" portion of the blog (over there -->), but I've been pushing back my deadline for it as the task grows larger and larger before me.

The first question, obviously, is how to really tackle that "Fairness Rule" once and for all.  We would need a rule that was unambiguous and didn't rely on any arbitrary interpretation.  It would have to be something we could hand a judge and say, "Here are the rules."

So how to tackle that problem?

We threw a lot of ideas around but none of them really suited the problem.  How could you maintain a nearly infinite potential for tricks but still exclude the ridiculous stuff that has nothing to do with Myachi skill?  It seemed like an impossible question since none of us could clearly define exactly what "Myachi skill" was.

The solution was there, of course, but we all tried to ignore it.  We kept hoping that something easier would eventually come along.  After far too many hours debating it, the choice has become clear.

There must be a database of acceptable tricks.

It will have to be voluminous.  It will have to incorporate every trick ever done with a Myachi and it will have to be constantly revised as new moves are created.  As the game expands a competition committee will have to take over to assess the "Myachi-ness" of each proposed move.

This database will have to be universally available and it'll have to be really easy to search if people are going to use it on the fly.  It would also make an awesome iPhone app.

Rest assured that this database is in the works.  Of course, I've been saying the same thing about the Sackthology for half a decade and you haven't seen that yet so I forgive you if you doubt me.


Do you have an idea on how to solve this Myachi conundrum that doesn't require 190 hours of my life?  You can rest assured that if you do, I'd love to hear it.  Please leave it in the comments section below.

Jammer or Trickster?

by Crazy Ivan

I had a conversation with Mantis the other day during the Wednesday Night Brawl on this topic.  Last night I had a conversation with Monk on the same topic, referring back to the conversation I'd had with Mantis.  Earlier tonight I had yet another conversation on the same topic with Maverick.  At this point I realized this was probably something I should tackle on the blog.

So are you a Jammer or a Trickster?

The truth is almost certainly something in between, but before you choose sides here, let me give you an explanation of what I mean by the two terms.

Jammer: This is a person who spends most of their Myachi time jamming and focuses on linking tricks together.  They are more prone to try novel moves on the spur of the moment and they usually practice new tricks by adding them to their regular shreds.  They tend to favor a few specific long combos of 10 or more moves.

Trickster: This is a person who spends most of their Myachi time learning new stuff and focus on finding new variations.  Their new moves usually come from finding ways to make existing moves more impressive or more difficult.  They tend to favor huge tricks or radically complex combos of only a few moves.

So the first and most obvious question is, which are you.  The second question, of course, is why does it matter?

Obviously I can't answer the first one so I'll tackle the second one and I'll do so by recalling the context in which it was brought up three times in the last 3 days.  It's all about the game of MYACH.

The question was about Monk and Maverick.  Both of these guys are incredible Myachi players.  If you're doing the math fairly, they are probably the #1 and #2 players in the world, though I'd be hard pressed to say which person gets which rank.

Maverick has the most impressive shreds in the game and hits all the biggest combos.  He owns a dozen moves that nobody else has ever pulled off and if you just make up some crazy combo he's never tried and challenge him to do it, he's as likely to hit it as anyone in the solar system.

But Monk consistently beats him at MYACH.

Monk is in many ways the opposite of Mav when he shreds.  His moves are so clean, precise and balanced that he makes the toughest moves look effortless.  He's so good that his chief fault when he shreds is that he forgets to make it look hard.  Monk is like the "Mario" of Myachi in that he is balanced in every field of the game.

I'm willing to bet my best Blue Dragon that if 100 random people were asked who was better at the game after watching Monk and Mav shred, at least 95 of them would pick Mav.  On the other side of that coin, I'd bet the same sack that if Monk and Mav played 100 games of MYACH, Monk would win at least 95 of them.

The problem with offering a straight forward ranking is that Mav is the world's best Jammer, but Monk is the world's best Trickster.  The question of which means most to you personally is going to determine who goes where in the overall ranks.  The fact is that if you want a trick hit right now, on demand, Monk is your guy.  If you want a jam that will knock your socks off, Mav's the best choice.

So where do you fit in?  Well, knowing whether you're a Jammer or a Trickster can help you as you progress in the game.  It frustrates Jammer's who know that they're good when they lose at MYACH.  Could be that you're just going up against a Trickster who has that natural edge.

Similarly, a Trickster might know that he or she is the better player, but somebody else manages to draw the crowds using only basic tricks.  They're gawking over some dude's Flow to a Fu and meanwhile you're doing Matrix variations to a bunch of tumbleweeds.  Don't sweat it.  Could be that the other person is a Jammer and they go into it with that natural edge on them.

In case you're curious, I fall somewhere toward the middle, but definitely on the "Jammer" side of the center point.  If you can't decide which one best describes you, fear not.  I'll be following up on this subject on Wednesday with the newest Facebook quiz (which will also be posted here).

MYACH Strategy 101

by Crazy Ivan

Amongst the many games we play with Myachis, the overwhelming favorite is MYACH.  For those who don't know, MYACH is a game kind of like HORSE or SKATE where 2 or more players challenge each other to match their toughest tricks.

Now, the definitive work on MYACH is still underway.  I'm in the process of putting together an all encompassing official rule book for the game which will appear on the "pages" section of this blog once it's complete.  As simple as the game seems when you first start playing, once you've played as long as I have you've seen a million different ways to "cheat" the game and you realize what a healthy set of rules such a free form game needs.

But this entry is for people who are already familiar with the game.  I'm sure that we'll end up talking about MYACH strategy quite a bit on this blog, but I figured we'd start by looking at some of the most common mistakes.

See, MYACH is not just a game of skills.  It's easy to say "she beat me because she's better at Myachi than me", but I've seen people beat players way outside of their skill level.  At the same time, of course, you're watching somebody with superior skill lose.  It's kind of weird to watch because on the surface MYACH is just a game of skill.  I do a trick, you try to match it.  You do a trick, I try to match it.

But there's a lot more going on in a game than just skill.  MYACH is also a game of strategy and as the best MYACH players in the world will tell you, skill has to play 2nd fiddle to strategy sometimes.  I have a feeling that books could (and will) be written on proper MYACH strategy so I don't want to go into too much detail just yet.  Want I hope to do in this entry is give you a tool you can use to examine your losses.

When somebody beats you at MYACH, ask yourself why you lost and don't just jump to the easy answer like "he's been playing Myachi longer", "My foot tricks were off" or "I didn't have my lucky BlueBeard."  Check the list below and ask yourself if you made any of the mistakes I describe below.  It might turn out that you really did lose because you didn't have that BlueBeard, but it's far more likely that your Achilles Heel is on this list:

 #1) Setting Too Big 

This is probably the most common mistake MYACH players make and it's not just the newbs.  I know many veteran players that were so enamored with the idea of lettering somebody with, say, a Duck and Dive that they wasted the whole game trying to hit a set that was too tough.

The result of this error is obvious.  You can't earn a letter against your opponent if you never successfully set a trick.  Meanwhile he or she is steadily chipping away at you.  Sure, you might hit your spectacular trick eventually and you'll earn yourself that letter, but while you were missing sets you might have gone down 2 or even 3 letters.

A good rule of thumb is to never set a trick you can't hit 4 times out of 5.  A good player has a big repertoire of tricks that they can hit 9 of 10 or even 99 of 100 but sometimes you have to go for something a little tougher.  Still, unless you are in a desperate situation, you should never call a trick that you can't hit 80% of the time.

 #2) Giving Away Their Weaknesses 

One of the main strategies MYACH players employ is probing for your weakness.  A really good opponent will start by setting a foot trick.  If you look comfortable on your feet, their next set might be a crazy behind the back variation.  If you look flexible they'll move on to some fast aerials or portals.  This way you can judge the relative strengths of your adversary and get a good idea how they'll respond to certain combos.

This means that someone knowing your weakness is a weakness all by itself.  You can easily disguise your weaknesses by going into every trick as though you are sure you're going to nail it.  Sure, you might miss the foot trick that was set against you, but if you approached it with enough confidence your opponents might think it was just by happenstance.  One way or the other, they'll be less likely to start drilling you with more low-body stuff.

Of course, like most people, you probably play against the same opponents a lot.  Your friends probably already know your weaknesses so there's no point in disguising them.  Of course, there's a way to turn this around as well.  Just practice up and don't tell them.  Believe me, there are few things more satisfying than nailing a trick that a regular opponent was sure you were going to miss.

 #3) Getting Stuck on a Set 

This actually ties in closely to the first point about setting too big.  This is a similar problem, but it seemed like it needed it's own section.  See, sometimes you'll set a trick that you do normally hit but for whatever reason you're not getting it today.  As a rule, most MYACH players try to avoid setting a trick 3 times in a row.

I should mention here that it's against the rules of the game to set a trick that you've already gotten a letter with so the only way you would ever set the same trick three times in a row is if you missed it the first two.  It can be really tempting to keep setting that same trick because you're really close to it and normally you nail it with ease.

Be really careful if you find yourself in that position.  Not only are you wasting several sets at this point, but you're pointing out a trick or type of trick that is giving you trouble.  If I see somebody miss a trick that they set a few times, I will often set that trick myself and cost them a letter.

 #4) Going in Without a Plan 

A while back all the Myachi Masters had a big MYACH tournament.  We had 12 people involved and that group included maybe 6 of the 8 best MYACH players in the world.  It was anybody's guess who was going to win but in the end it wasn't skill that won out, it was strategy.

Monk was the only Myachi Master that showed up to the tourney with a list of tricks in hand.  He'd been practicing a few really weird sets and he had them written down and at the ready so he wouldn't forget what they were mid-game.  Half way through the game the other masters were trying to think of sets they could letter the remaining competitors with, but Monk already had a list.

I should note that in this case Monk was pretty familiar with his competition.  Not only did he have a list of tricks, but he'd also noted which people he probably would and would not earn letters against with them.  That way in the end when it was down to two remaining opponents he could look right to a move that would letter both of them.

 #5) Convincing Yourself That You'll Miss 

There's a cool thing about 95% of Myachi moves.  If the sun is shining just right and the relative humidity is perfect and you just happen upon the perfect set, you might hit a move you've never heard of before on your first try.  You might even do it if the trick is way outside your skill level.

Now obviously there are plenty of moves for which this is not true.  Nobody's going to luck into something like a foot 720 or a Reverse Yoga Cross but I've actually seen people hit tricks as hard as the Jedi and a One-Handed Spidey Sense that had never tried them before.

Myachi is a pretty psychological game and if you approach every trick with confidence, once in a while you're bound to surprise yourself by hitting something you thought you couldn't do.  I guess I don't know how much of a difference it really makes, but there's certainly no benefit in saying something like "I'm never gonna get this" before you try something.

 #6) Not Having Enough Weapons 

To win at the higher levels in a game of MYACH, you need to several knock out type tricks.  You'll have to be creative because the only sure way to earn a letter is to give something that (a) is ridiculously tough and (b) they've never seen before.  No matter how tough a move is, there's a chance that the other guy has it too.

Plenty of would be contenders find themselves in the ring with somebody like Mantis, Maverick or Bones.  They use a few tricks that are almost always good for letters but they fail against a tougher opponent.  Now what?  They've got 4 more really tough tricks, but you need 5 tricks to win.  Even if every trick earns a letter it won't be enough.

To reach the upper echelon of MYACH, you need knock-out tricks in several different styles.  If you focus only on, say, under the leg moves, you'll never be able to earn enough letters to win a game.  If you underestimate your opponent and go in with only 7 or 8 tough moves you might find yourself improvising by the end of the game, which puts you at a serious disadvantage.

 #7) Not Learning New Stuff 

The sad tales are abundant; people who were once feared in the world of MYACH that rested on their laurels, thought nobody could take them down and didn't bother keeping up with all the new moves and styles.  Then a new challenger shows up and mops the floor with them by doing relatively easy sets.  Problem is that they're all sets that the gilded champ has never seen before.

I'm not naming any names, but I've seen exactly this scenario play out.  Heck, I was even the victim of it at one time.  Being at the top of the game of MYACH is a tough title to hold.  You basically have to keep running just to stand still because there are always more tricks being created.  There are whole styles and categories of moves now that were untapped even two years ago.  It's pretty safe to say that two years from now there will be yet more categories and styles to learn.

To be a master of MYACH is to be a master of an evolving art form so if you want to reach the top, you should go in knowing that you never get to a point where you know it all.  That's the beauty of the game.  You can learn the basics in a few quick minutes and you can master the rest in a few short lifetimes.