The top 8 brackets of the SpinShare Winter 2021 SpeenOpen have been finalized, and Spin Rhythm XD’s top players are fixing to square off to establish themselves as the next SpeenOpen Champion. The fourth and final matchup of Saturday’s quarterfinals is a rematch between top veterans Programmatic and Ricki. This match is slated to be one of the closest quarterfinal matchups, with Prog being considered the weakest top seed. However, Ricki has some doubts to shake off going into the final rounds. Will Ricki shake off his doubts and have his revenge?

Programmatic doesn’t have much he needs to prove here, having finished in 2nd place in the Autumn SpeenOpen. However, his day to shine was actually with his third-place finish in Summer; once considered a high-accuracy player with a low ceiling, Prog took reigning champion Nick_Azn to task on some of the game’s toughest songs, and smashed his perceived skill ceiling in front of everyone.

Ricki re-enters as 6th seed after a great Autumn performance that ended up seeing him pitted against Programmatic in the SpeenOpen quarterfinals. Ricki failed to advance in Winter qualifiers, however, after a contentious ruling destroyed his momentum in the round of 16. After his opponent kaddalaug withdrew due to time constraints, however, Ricki was given another chance to advance, and secured it over his opponent, Edge. Ricki will have to steel his nerves if he wants to make waves in the SpeenOpen finals, however.

I talked with Programmatic and Ricki about their upcoming match and tournament hopes after their wins.

The Empire Strikes Back: Programmatic

rewardadrawer: Briefly describe your play style. Is there anything that differentiates you from the other players?

Programmatic: I play freewheel. I play using an extremely high DPI (3400) and I tap using my index finger on the D key instead of left-clicking with my mouse.

What patterns are you personally weak at?

My weakest patterns are non-rhythmic match patterns where the larger movements don’t line up with the rhythms of the music. I also struggle with patterns that are made intentionally difficult to read; even if they play like patterns that I’m familiar with.

What is your strong suit, or what are your preferred charts/charter?

My strongest patterns are fast, but simple alternating tap / beat patterns and rhythmic match strings. Some of my favorite charters are Stride, smb, and Zick.

Your first match-up is against Ricki, which is a rematch of Autumn’s first set. How do you think this matchup will be similar to Autumn’s? How will it differ?

It’s pretty evident at this point that I have a hard time predicting the outcomes of my own matches. Many of the opponents that I’ve one against have gotten FCs on far more difficult charts than I have, yet it seems that this disadvantage is offset by my ability to keep focus in tournaments. I expect my match against Ricki to be as close as last my matches against him and PickPig were last SSSO.

This is your third appearance in the top 8s, with each tournament result being better than the last. Do you think this is your time for first place?

Certainly not. My 2nd place victory last SSSO was attributed mostly to LtChaos’s win against TreXDer, giving me a much better chance in semifinals. This SSSO, not only is there double elimination to make upsets like those less impactful, but there is now a fourth 1st place contender, ExHilEr8, joining Mapy, NickAzn, and TreXDer, none of whom I expect to be able to beat.

Since the last Speen Open, you’ve become very active in the Custom 8s, a series of weekly mini-tournaments. In those, you’ve been on a tear, winning three grand finals and an additional Custom 8s. How do you think Custom 8s performance translates to major events?

I don’t think my time spent playing C8s has had an impact on my performance in the SSSO. C8s tends to challenge my sightreading ability more since I rarely play charts in my free time (the vast majority of my playtime in SRXD is charting), and I usually end up playing charts that I’ve never seen before or, when given the opportunity to counterpick, charts that I made myself. SSSO is different; since I usually put in some time to play every chart in the upcoming round’s pool at least once, I can determine which charts I’m most consistent in. That said, given the size of this SSSO’s pool, I don’t have nearly enough time to familiarize myself with every chart in the pool; so it’s still likely that it will still feel like I’m sightreading a few of the charts in my upcoming match.

In addition to competing, you are also a commentator for major events. Do you prefer commentating or competing? Why?

I prefer competing over commentating. That said, the opportunity to commentate makes competing less stressful; since it means that if I get knocked out of the tournament early, I’ll have more opportunities to commentate future matches.

Is there anything additional you’d like to say to those reading?

Archie

Return of the Jedi: Ricki

rewardadrawer: Briefly describe your play style. Is there anything that differentiates you from the other players?

Ricki: My playstyle is fairly standard, keyboard for beats & mouse (freewheel) for all other controls. The only thing that might differ from the norm is that due to spacebars on previous keyboards failing on me, I switched to NUM 0 as my primary beat key a while back.

What patterns are you personally weak at?

Typically I’ll end up missing in match note/movement heavy sections (rifles, not a fan…), but if a pattern is unconventional or particularly dense it can also throw me off. Past a certain BPM, I struggle to keep up…

What is your strong suit, or what are your preferred charts/charter?

It’s a bit of a cop-out, but I genuinely enjoy playing any chart created by any of the well-known charters, at least when playing for fun and not in tournament play. Previously I answered this with my preferred charters being Kali / Prog / RAD; in more recent times Prog’s style has changed a little, making for some issues in playability for me personally, and I’ve now technically lost every round that a Kali chart was played, IIRC… The list still stands though, and I’d also add Stride & smb at this point.

Your first match-up is against Programmatic, which is a rematch of Autumn’s first set. How do you think this matchup will be similar to Autumn’s? How will it differ?

I expect the set to go in similar fashion to the last tournament – Prog has improved in accuracy, PFCing multiple 40+ charts, but I’ll be happy to take a game if I can.

It always blows me away to see the level of support shown during a live match, everyone in the community is super supportive of all the players.

Ricki

This is your second appearance in the top 8s, but it comes under slightly unusual circumstances. What happened?

Oh wow, this was certainly an eventful approach to the playoffs, I’ll try to summarize…

So in the first round of mine & Kadd’s matchup in round of 16, Kadd got mixed up on which chart had been selected, resulting in us both having to start again. Understandable when you realise that Kadd must’ve been playing at something like 4am, it happens. End result of that was on the replay I messed up and misread a beathold as a beat, losing the first round and eventually the match to Kadd, 2 – 1.

Due to the times Kadd would have had to play the following week, while technically doable they opted to bow out, leaving a gap in the top 8. The organizers set up an offline match between Edge and myself in order to determine who would fill the space, which was a lot of fun – no audience, less pressure!

You’ve recently begun managing the Custom 8s weekly tournaments from behind the scenes, as well as commentating. Of all the ways you’ve been a part of various tournaments, which has been your favorite?

Managing the Custom 8s tournaments is perhaps overselling it slightly! TheWay123 is definitely the manager, at least with that side of things. I’ll do the technical bits (or for me, the fun parts), make sure the stream, scenes & matchups are all running as smoothly as I can achieve on the day.

Commentary is… a lot of fun, genuinely, though perhaps not everyone wants to hear the broad English accent! I can be quite anxious at times, but chatting about the gameplay on show with the other commentators is just brilliant.

Which has been my favourite? Probably playing, to be honest. I’ve never gone into these with a “must-win” mindset, just go in and play to the best of my ability. It always blows me away to see the level of support shown during a live match, everyone in the community is super supportive of all the players. Re-watching the VOD of my match against Jammy, with the Twitch chat in the Summer 2020 tournament was… emotional, to say the least.

Is there anything additional you’d like to say to those reading?

For anyone out there who hasn’t played SRXD yet, I strongly recommend at least trying it. Not only is the game fantastic, but the community & fanbase are just S+ tier – everyone is welcome, come say Hi!

A New Hope?

The winner’s bracket of the SpinShare Winter 2021 SpeenOpen will be broadcast on Twitch this Saturday, starting at 1 pm EST/6 pm UTC, with the loser’s bracket and grand finals taking place Sunday starting at the same time. If you’re not able to watch the SpeenOpen live, you can still follow the action on the Toornament bracket. Spin Rhythm XD is available on Steam. If you’d like to play these charts yourself, check out SpinShare and get in on the action!