In this one I’m on Warlord and it’s straight sweaty duels. I’m opening with that backstep heavy/headbutt flow to see who’s actually pressing buttons, because that’s the whole point—if you swing into my armor and I’ve got the health lead, I’m taking that trade all day. I also talk through conditioning: smacking your guard with heavies until you get tired of chip and start trying to parry, then I’ll “let you know” I’ll actually throw the heavy finisher. A lot of these rounds come down to timing, spacing, and not autopiloting when the opponent is clearly showing patterns. I run into some really good fights—Black Prior especially—where I had to respect flips/counters and track his panic lights. I literally call myself out mid-match for not taking my own advice: if his guard isn’t top, I don’t need to worry about zone, and when he’s in critical he wants to mash light. There’s also a match where I start playing around too much and suddenly it’s round five and I’m forced to lock in. Overall takeaway: stop flowcharting, watch the guard, punish the habits, and only take the scary chain heavies when the situation actually favors you.