I finally got the Diamond monkey off my back

30 May 2024 • Andy Corrigan

After my placement matches with my main, Juri, I began my Street Fighter 6 Ranked journey in Silver rank. The subsequent rise to Gold took mere days. Getting to Platinum and staying there had its challenges - I had trouble getting it to stick for a week or two, tumbling back down to Gold occasionally, but I always felt it was only a matter of time; that I was always moving forward in some way.

But Platinum’s where I’ve been comfortably stuck ever since.

In comparison to those levels below, where rank-ups happened every day or so, the rise through Platinum's 5 tiers has been much slower. Part of this is because win streaks go a longer way in the lower ranks - win 2-3 matches on the bounce and it multiplies the league points earned. In Platinum, win streaks count for little and consistency is king.

It took me a week to even get a foothold in Platinum, a week and a half to hit level 2, an entire month to hit level 3, and even longer to get level 4, where I’ve spent most of the last few months. Each time you rise, the more meagre the rewards for victory.

Every so often, a really bad night would see me lose a week’s worth of progress, and this process of rise and fall became a bit of a pattern for... just doing the maths here... oh god... 6 months?! A particularly bad patch almost broke me after finally hitting Platinum level 5.

It was a losing streak like I’d never experienced. Two entire nights in free-fall sent me from mid-Platinum tier 5 aaall the way back down to level 3, where I struggled to hold onto even that.

I was honestly distraught. In the past, as with Street Fighter V, this is usually where I’d say ‘cool, I’ve hit my level,’ and stop playing altogether. This time, I was a little more resolute; it was time for self-reflection and some changes to my approach.

I took a few nights off and watched my recent replays instead. A couple of things stood out:

• My anti-airs were inconsistent and getting me in trouble
• My footsies game was weak - I was relying too much on Drive Impacts and Counter Drive-Impacts for punish opportunities
• I was using the same 2-3 weak combos that got me out of the Gold ranks, whereas my opponents were hitting me with much bigger damage in key moments
• I played on autopilot a lot, especially at phases when I was close to, or in Platinum tier 5

More importantly, away from the game itself, I recognised I was conflating rank with my self-worth and that needed to stop. I should play because learning and getting better is fun, not because of my rank.

Ironically, finding the solutions to all these problems caused my performance to get worse before it got better.

As I talked about in a previous post, my anti-air execution was much better with an arcade stick than with the leverless controller I’d used throughout my entire time with Street Fighter 6 thus far. The downside to using an arcade stick was my movement felt less precise, but I decided I valued move execution more. It was the right call at that time, and my movement became easier with time.

Lastly, I spent literal weeks in training mode learning a bunch of new combo routes and options to make sure I could punish better when given the opportunity.

With persistence, understanding my faults, and changing my gameplan, something finally clicked and I’ve been on the climb back up the ranks ever since. Don’t get me wrong; it was still slow, there were still challenges and setbacks, but the sense of upward trajectory - of progress - was at last there.

And finally, this week just gone, I finally got the monkey off my back and hit Diamond rank for the first time. The hard work paid off.

Finally a Diamond geezer… for now at least

I know that to many - those both outside the scene or simply used to being very good at fighting games - this will seem insignificant; that it’ll barely register as an achievement. I mean, even I don’t think it’s an achievement and I’m me, yet the let-off was huge and I felt weirdly emotional about it.

In comparison to the ranks below, Platinum has been a meat grinder. I’ve felt every emotion possible during my months stuck there; joy, despair, and everything in between. At times it felt absolutely hopeless, but the result was that I knuckled down, learned heaps more about the game and myself, and powered through to the other side. Getting that damned pink logo under my gamertag was a sweet reward.

But… I can’t rest on my laurels just yet. This post is not a victory parade; it’s a progress report and reality check. I absolutely will lose my Diamond rank status and plummet back down to Platinum, maybe even crushingly so (hell, I’ve probably lost and regained Diamond status umpteen times by the time you get to read this).

But getting there at all makes a huge difference to me mentally. For quite some time it was unthinkable, unattainable, but I got there. Now that fight's won, the next battle is keeping it.