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If you happen to’ve been following the preventing sport neighborhood, you would possibly’ve observed one thing unusual occurring at some latest Responsible Gear tournaments. A participant hailing from the U.S. named Joe Biden has been sweeping the competitors, inserting within the high 10 within the final 20 or so tourneys he’s competed in. However…wait a minute, Joe Biden? Sure, Joe Biden. Though the identify has led of us to consider it could be the present President of the US, longtime neighborhood members know the true story.
I used to be floored once I noticed tweets of the official account for Dark Brandon tagged in event wins for 2012’s Responsible Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, an up to date and reworked model of Arc System Works’ 2002 2D preventing sport. I imply, the @POTUS Twitter was mentioned in these tourneys, spinning everybody’s head round. Speak about a double-take. I, and different reporters, together with Washington Put up author and former Kotaku staffer Nathan Grayson, went on the hunt, attempting to reply essentially the most essential questions rocking the neighborhood: Simply who within the hell is Joe Biden, the participant? And why does he principal the ninja Chipp Zanuff?
“I’ve been enjoying preventing video games on and off for a minimum of 10 years,” Joe Biden, who requested to maintain his identification a secret as a part of a long-running gag inside the preventing sport neighborhood, advised Kotaku over Discord. “I went by means of numerous totally different gamer tags rising up. I ended up simply sticking to ‘Joe Biden’ as a result of it felt proper to me as Chipp Zanuff and Joe Biden are each presidents, have white hair, and might get damage simply.”
Kotaku considered e mail exchanges between the non-presidential Biden and event organizers, confirming that he’s the Joe Biden presently cleansing up the competitors. This was additional verified by two others Kotaku spoke with who confronted him in newer tournaments.
While this mysterious gamer has been playing fighting games for over a decade now, he only recently sprung up on the competitive circuit. According to fighting game community (FGC) player and data tracker Start.gg, previously known as Smash.gg and owned by Microsoft, Joe Biden hit the aggressive scene in November 2021, scoring thirteenth place out of a bracket pool of 88 gamers. He’s since gone on to do fairly nicely for himself, usually inserting within the high 10 spots in most Responsible Gear XX Accent Core Plus R tournaments he participates in. Biden is fast to level out that he isn’t “dominating or profitable all of the tournaments,” however he does view himself on the identical enjoying area as the highest U.S. Faust participant and founder of the annual Frosty Faustings tournament, Mike “ElvenShadow” Boczar.
However what makes Joe Biden so lethal? Effectively, he mains grasp ninja and President of the Japanese Chipp Kingdom, Chipp Zanuff. As to be anticipated being a ninja and all, Chipp is extremely quick and unpredictable. He’s obtained wonderful mixup potential, can simply open up his opponent for some large injury, and has the flexibility to run up partitions and teleport across the stage. Chipp’s fairly the ache within the ass, as aggressive preventing sport participant Sam “Garbage” Ehren advised Kotaku over Discord, who misplaced to Joe Biden on the month-to-month Boston Blue Beat event on October 25.
“I feel the principle factor is he performs Chipp, a particularly technical character with an insane toolset, that additionally occurs to be kinda uncommon locally,” Rubbish mentioned. “So if you play him, he’s hitting you with a deluge of mixups you’ve by no means seen earlier than. The actually scary factor about Joe, although, is that he additionally has actually good basic preventing sport expertise, so it’s not likely sufficient to simply defend or navigate his okizeme [wake-up attack]. You additionally should kinda outplay him. The one factor working in your favor is Chipp is a unstable character, so in the event you can sneak in a few hits you’ll be able to soften him. However that’s a tall order when paired with a participant like Joe Biden.”
Rubbish positioned third in that event, whereas Joe Biden took residence second place.
Fellow Responsible Gear participant Jack Wachter advised Kotaku over Discord that Joe Biden is enjoyable to play in opposition to, even when they lost to the non-presidential body double during a North America and European open Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R tournament on October 23.
“I don’t have a lot expertise with Chipp in comparison with different characters, so I can’t examine Joe Biden’s Chipp to different Chipps outdoors of Joe Biden being very sturdy,” Wachter mentioned. “Most definitely high [North American player] Chipp. He is aware of the way to play secure (necessary since Chipp is product of moist tissues), however can be aggressive with motion and mixups. I’ve performed him a number of instances in brackets and some instances in informal units. Undoubtedly a much better participant than I’m, although I managed to ship him to the losers bracket as soon as.”
For that event, Wachter got here in second and Joe Biden landed in first place.
Joe Biden mentioned he’s solely obtained time for Responsible Gear in the intervening time however is stoked about upcoming preventing video games like Street Fighter 6 and the League of Legends fighter Project L. Till then, he’ll hold bodying of us with Chipp or, in the event you occur to catch him in a non-competitive setting, because the projectile and zoning-based character Dizzy.
“I’ve had a bonus in Responsible Gear XX Accent Core Plus R competitions as a result of Chipp is tough to grasp and a less-played character on the high degree,” Biden mentioned. “Additionally I’ve spent numerous time in coaching mode studying the way to play Chipp and learning Japanese Chipp gamers like Samitto, Endou, and Susumu earlier than the Rollback netcode patch came out in 2020. For the identify, to me, it simply is smart whereas additionally being a bit humorous that Joe Biden would play Chipp in Responsible Gear. Part of it was positively ‘for the memes’ and I benefit from the jokes and a focus it brings to the sport.”
Kotaku reached out to the White Home for remark however didn’t obtain a reply.
