The folks over at G4TV recently posted a quick interview with Shining Decopon, the phenomenal Tira player who took home the gold in Soul Calibur V at EVO 2012. He came from relative obscurity to defeat a string of impressive opponents and clinch the entire tournament from  the losers bracket. While this latest spotlight covers the basics like his beginnings in Soul Calibur scene and his thoughts on the skill levels of other countries, the most surprising revelation is that EVO 2012 was his very first major tournament appearance. Decopon was able to translate what he’s learned training online into a very public championship title.

We’ve included a short excerpt below, but be sure to head over to G4TV to read the entire interview.

With this sort of experience in mind, what differences have you perceived in playing someone online versus playing someone in person?

That’s a tough question… Well, online, you can play in a setting that you can adjust to your maximum comfort level. Everything there is a constant. When you play offline in a new location, you might run into various issues like monitor lag or a controller you don’t like. It can be difficult to adjust to.

What was it that compelled you to “take your skills public” and come all the way to the US for EVO 2012, then?

Oh! Well, this is actually my first time travelling to the US. Everything here is so different. – not just the way people play, but the whole environment. Totally different! But when it comes strictly to playing… when I concentrate and focus, the differences becoming meaningless.

The crowds here in the US are known for getting really excited about the competitions. Do you let the crowd cheering and getting excited give you an ego boost, or do you just decide to tune it out entirely?

To be honest, most of my experience is playing online. When I play, I tend to focus on practicing and honing my skills. I think because I’ve done that so much, the crowd doesn’t really have much of an impact on me. I’m just so used to that sort of intense concentration!

Japanese tournaments tend be to be single-elimination. Do you prefer those or the Western-style double elimination tournaments?

Double elimination, easily! In high-level play, you have to learn how to read your opponent and correctly anticipate their strategy. In a single-elimination tournament, you sometimes don’t have the opportunity to fully analyze the other player and come up with an effective counter strategy. In that regard, double elimination allows you the time needed to formulate such a counter-measure.

Have you ever been in a major face-to-face competition like this before?

Actually, this is my first major tournament.

Wait, seriously?

Seriously!

Source: G4TV, images via Karaface