---
title: 'The 10 Skills That Separate Top Players From The Rest'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=jjzxC8aQ9K0'
video_id: 'jjzxC8aQ9K0'
date: 2026-06-15
duration_sec: 1458
---

# The 10 Skills That Separate Top Players From The Rest

> Source: [The 10 Skills That Separate Top Players From The Rest](https://youtube.com/watch?v=jjzxC8aQ9K0)

## Summary

This video breaks down the concept of 'fundamentals' in fighting games into 10 distinct skills, explaining how top players like Justin Wong and Daigo excel in different areas. The speaker provides examples of players who exemplify each skill and offers advice on how to identify and improve one's own weaknesses.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Fundamentals** [0:00] — Fundamentals are transferable skills between games, but they are rarely defined or broken down. Top players specialize in different fundamental skills.
- **Skill 1: Reactions** [0:54] — Reactions involve spacing, footsies, anti-airs, and reacting to neutral situations. Shia High is known for reacting to short hops in KOF, and Punk for hit-confirming crouch medium kicks in SF5.
- **Skill 2: Mental Stacking / Randomness** [3:02] — Being unpredictable is a key skill. Humans are bad at being random. Top players like TempestNYC and JB excel at mental stacking and exploiting opponent's expectations.
- **Skill 3: Patience / Composure** [5:12] — Players like Goichi and Justin Wong wait for opponents to make mistakes, forcing them to overextend. This is an old-school skill but still valuable for defense and clock control.
- **Skill 4: Execution** [6:27] — Execution is the most important skill for new players. Top players rarely drop combos. Consistency (e.g., 1% drop rate vs 2%) can be the difference between winning and losing.
- **Skill 5: Game Knowledge** [7:58] — Game knowledge is about leveraging understanding of mechanics to play optimally. Tokido is known for picking top tiers and playing methodically based on risk-reward analysis.
- **Skill 6: Innovation / Lab Monster** [9:29] — Innovation involves finding new tech and cheap strategies. Kazunoko is known for quickly identifying top tiers, and Fenrich for discovering touch-of-death combos.
- **Skill 7: Uniqueness** [10:49] — Players with unique playstyles are hard to prepare for. Examples include aMSa (Yoshi in Smash), iDom's Laura in SF5, and Hotashi's unorthodox Nago in Guilty Gear.
- **Skill 8: Adaptation** [12:50] — Adaptation is the ability to adjust over a set. Daigo is known for being unbeatable in long sets. MKLeo has a high win rate in game 4 and 5 comebacks.
- **Skill 9: Clutch Factor** [13:45] — Some players perform best under pressure. Justin Wong and MenaRD are examples of players who win critical sets (e.g., grand finals, top 8 qualifiers) at a high rate.
- **Skill 10: Work Ethic / Grit** [14:55] — Perseverance and a positive mindset are crucial. Players like Brian_F and Mochi balance content creation and high-level play through strong work ethic.
- **How to Use This Information** [16:01] — Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Focus on improving weak areas rather than strong ones, as diminishing returns apply. Use drills, study, and lifestyle changes to improve specific skills.
- **Exploiting Opponent's Weaknesses** [21:08] — Target the areas where your opponent is weak. Even if they have better overall fundamentals, you can overcome them with matchup knowledge, reactions, or gimmicks.
- **Fundamentals as a Time Multiplier** [22:01] — Fundamentals help you learn new games faster (e.g., 1.5-2x speed), but they cannot replace game-specific knowledge. They are a multiplier, not a substitute for practice.
- **Bonus: Versatility** [22:38] — Versatility (playing multiple characters/games) is a result of strong fundamentals, not a separate skill. Players like SonicFox and Justin Wong demonstrate this.

### Conclusion

Fundamentals are a collection of 10 skills that can be identified and improved individually. By focusing on your weaknesses and using fundamentals as a time multiplier, you can accelerate your improvement in any fighting game.

## Transcript

if you've ever seen a top player like
Justin Wong or Daga umara on stream you
might also hear that they have strong
fundamentals I agree but what does that
even mean and how do they even get these
fundamentals in the first place
fundamentals are skills that can
transfer between game to game but no one
ever talks about what these skills are
how to improve in them or more
importantly the different types of
fundamental skills that can exist for
example Justin is known for his ability
to be patient not crack and wait for the
right timing while Daigo is more known
for his ability to make psychic reads
and to innovate the gameplay meta both
of these players have goated
fundamentals but they specialize in
different skills and different areas
which means that they also have relative
weaknesses to their strengths but before
we get to this or how I've personally
improved my fundamentals over time and
what you can take away from this we need
to Define all the skills that make up
fundamentals I broke it down into 10
different categories along with players
who exemplify each skill and we'll start
with the first skill reactions now I
think there's a lot of different ways to
define the skill I think of someone
that's really good at spacing or really
good at footsies or really good at like
anti iring or really good at reacting to
many different things in neutral the
first person I think of this that
exemplifies reactions is Shia high now
I've personally played against Shia haai
and shiai is kind of known as like the
only person can react to a short hop and
King of Fighters reacting to a short hop
is insanely insanely fast and you can't
just like stick out a button you can
stick out preemptively but in order to
react you generally have to have either
a really really strong crouching normal
which not a lot of characters have or an
invincible DP and so being able to react
to a very very quick jump with a DP is
something only a few players can do and
Shia High I think is easily the most
consistent at it the other person I
think of is punk punk in Street Fighter
5 kind of evolved The Meta because his
reactions were just so strong with Karen
so a lot of people didn't think that you
could hit confirm Crouch medium kicks in
Street Fighter five Punk sure that not
only is it possible it's possible to do
very very consistently and if you apply
the very good HIC confirming skills of
punk a along with the ability to weave
in and out of the opponent's buttons and
to perfectly place the crash me kicks or
the sweeps or whatever he's using to
whiff punish the opponent it's no wonder
that punk is one of the best players in
the world you can argue it's like
anticipation right so when I watch Shia
high in some of the matches like against
worse players he's antir everything but
against stronger players he can't antire
everything as consistently right because
it's harder to anticipate the opponent's
moves when they're really really good
and you can also argue it's raw reaction
time take for example you're actually
testing your
reaction and so 178 milliseconds I
recognize that's probably on the better
end I suspect many top players have a
benchmark slightly better than this even
like let's say uh top player has 150
milliseconds that's almost a two frame
advantage and two frames can be the
difference between something that's
reactable and something that's not
either way if you're really good at
reactions you're really good at reacting
to many different things in the neutral
game game number two is kind of the
opposite of reactions which is mental
stacking or just being random I know
that's kind of like a derogatory term
being random but some of the best
players are very very good at being
random often times this means that
you're really good at running offense if
you've played fighting games you've
probably ran into opponents where you
just can't predict what they're going to
do and if you can't predict what they're
going to do it makes it very very hard
to stop and being random is actually a
really really important skill now humans
are inherently really shitty at being
random this is the reason why rock paper
scissors Champions exist this is why
terms like forensic accounting exist
because people are bad at making up
numbers this is why Evo memo 37 exists
because 37 is the most popular number
out of 1 to 100 and people that are
really good at being random choose their
options in a very unpredictable manner
it's not that there isn't logic behind
what they choose it's just that logic is
so disguised and it's so well thought
out and there's also like that hint of
instinct and reading the opponent and
all those combin into being very
unpredictable if you've ever played
online like Street Fighter you've
probably ran into an online Ken who
either matches DP and then when you try
to finally bait the DP they go for like
a walk up throw or some like absolutely
crazy uh scenario and those are same
kind of players but when I think of like
a top player I think of someone like
Tempest NYC from the Guilty Gear space
who plays Leo and is just really really
good predicting when you're trying to
bait the DP and when you're not going to
bait the DP right or very good at like
sneaking in this really really slow
cross up that Leo has and you could
throw it any time you can beat it at any
time but he's really good at sneaking in
at the moments when you least expect it
another person from the uh Street
Fighter scene is JB I think JB is
insanely good at mental stacking
probably some of the best I've played in
Street Fighter 6 and someone that can
like do pretty suboptimal options like
round start Drive Rush overhead and have
it work really consistently I think is
just someone that gets a really good
feel for the opponent's mental and
exploits it really hard and you can also
argue dieo is very at this right
everyone thinks of the um Shu and that's
kind of what this comes down to is being
able to predict the shukan timing even
though it's really risky it's really
really strong and if you have the read
Around the shukin it's hard for it not
to pay off all right so category number
three is patience composure I guess you
could say it's people that don't crack
and wait for the right moment so I think
of two people guichi and Justin Wong
they will tur you out they will wait for
you to make a mistake they're very good
at forcing you to come to them they're
also very good at just kind kind of down
backing and letting you overextend and
then punish you for that overextension
now this is one of the skills I feel
like is more of a old school skill
especially in games today where it's
like every game has their own version of
Drive rush or Dash Lade or strive just
you know you have a million [ __ ]
ways to get in but the skill is still
very valuable especially for controlling
the clock for forcing the opponent to
come to you and overextending I also
think of these players is ones that have
really good defense so a lot of moves
and fighting games if your opponent is
flustered or or if they're like
distracted it's really easy to get away
with like Drive Impact for example or
throw in Dragon Ball Fighters and if you
look at guichi guichi had some of the
best defense in Dragon Ball Fighters
just being able to stay patient choose
the right options react to the right
things and not get flustered on defense
I also think of The Comebacks Justin has
made like an Ultimate Marvel or an mvc2
or his runaway game with storm and these
are all skills that transfer to other
games as well all right skill number
four is execution now I think this is a
number one skill that new players should
focus on because if you can't execute a
core Circle forward or a half circle
forward or Dragon punch motion when you
want to you're basically playing a
different version of the fighting game
right you're basically playing can I
actually execute what I want to execute
as opposed to the actual fighting game
but the people at the top I think are
ones that just never drop combos which
is weird because I also think that this
is like a old school skill old games
used to have like very high execution
ceilings there used to be combos that
only one person could do like Sako or
Fab where you could tell their play stop
because they were the only person that
would go for this particular combo in
this situation nowadays I still think
this skill exists but it exists in a
different way which is consistency of
inputs right I might drop a combo 2% of
the time in a actual tournament setting
but someone else might only drop it 1%
of the time and that 1% is a huge
difference considering that could be the
difference between a win or a loss and
there are some very technical things you
can still go for for example in Grand
blue Fantasy Versus there's like this
fuzzy guard instant overhead that's very
very technical to do basically you have
to like Lancel your jump in it's
absurdly crazy really Technical and only
a few people in the game can do it but
being able to do that basically gives
you a free 50/50 where no one else could
do a 50/50 so it still is a very
important skill and it's easily the one
at a lowlevel is the easiest to apply
across fighting games for sure all right
skill number five is game knowledge this
is weird because a lot of people think
of game knowledge as like how much
you've actually played the game and
that's that's not stuff that really
transfers over I'm thinking more of
players that can use the game knowledge
and leverage it to play as optimally as
possible these are players that are
considered like to be cheap or players
that seem to choose the right options
more than their opponent and you can
also argue this as a game awareness side
of things right because if you're really
good at extracting game knowledge and
very good at understanding the mechanics
of how the game works you can have
better awareness by predicting what's
going to happen in a situation you've
never seen before right couple of
players that come to my mind are tokido
right he's always picking like the best
character in every game he studies the
game I mean you look at his YouTube he's
literally like wearing a lap coat for
like some of his YouTube videos and he's
very methodical about how he approaches
The Game and his play style is just it's
very surgical right it's something like
he's always choosing the right option in
C situations and he's just going to win
strictly based off risk reward not some
of the other skills that other players
might have the reason I think this is a
fundamental skill is because being able
to extract data from a game and use it
to inform your decisions correctly is
actually a skill a lot of players aren't
as good as you might think they mostly
play on instinct or they you know do
what feels right in the moment but I
feel like people that are really good at
the skill have a better understand their
risk reward and what would actually work
and can exploit against their opponent
all right so skills number six is I
don't know it like Innovation basically
someone that you think of like as a lab
monster or a tech monster this is a
legitimate skill that is very very
important this is a skill that most top
players just Farm out to Twitter they're
just like oh let me see what tech is on
Twitter okay let me steal that your Tech
now it's my tech right but even just
finding the tech on Twitter and then
sifting through what's actually useful
and what's not and then developing The
Meta based on that stuff that's a skill
in itself I like to think of these
players is also like the people that can
find the cheap [ __ ] ASAP think of
someone like kazunoko right kazunoko is
known for picking up the game finding
who the cheap character is like day one
and then having a super streamlined
approach abusing all the cheap [ __ ]
because they figured out what the cheap
[ __ ] was before anyone else I would also
categorize people that are just really
really good finding Tech in this
category as well and I feel like most
tech monsters aren't like top players
but one that I think is a top player is
fenr so you guys might know fenrich from
the Dragon Ball Z games but he plays
like everything and he was known for
like finding the craziest Touch of death
combos in like any situation and then
he' back it up by actually doing them in
match and he kind of innovated the touch
of death meta and Dragon Ball fire Z all
right so skill number seven is
uniqueness I know this is like kind of
hard one to describe but if you've
played against any of these players
you'll totally understand it's like
someone that has a completely different
play style than anyone else and it
really really throws you off so this can
be players like amsa who plays Yoshi and
basically is the Yoshi above all other
Yoshis because no one else plays like
them right basically amsa had to develop
their own play style to fight against
the masses they're very Innovative
strategies that people just haven't seen
and it gives them a leg up it's not that
ASA is the most cracked player in in the
world by a long shot as part of it
actually he's really really good but
it's also that you can't train for amsa
right it's really hard to train for
someone that plays that uniquely I also
think of idams Laura and Street 5 very
very hard to train for because no one
else play that character at a high level
and the best way to distinguish this
between like lab monsters are there are
people that just play the character
differently right and hotchi from Guilty
Gear is one where everyone played Nago
in a very like methodical way and a very
I'm an Abus the best options way and
otashi you have this like completely
mental stack completely super fastpac
I'm a blood rage in your face at the
wall doing all this crazy stuff that no
other Naga was doing and it worked very
very well for him because he was
basically playing a different game than
everyone else like unlike the lab
monster this stuff wasn't really optimal
right no one to this day is really doing
blood rage Subs like otashi is but
because this was so unique and it's so
hard to prepare for he made it work now
I also think these are like people that
are like really good at Fireball
patterns so you think of like someone
has really strong zoning like bonchan
you might play against a million other
cagots or Lukes and then you run into
Bon Chan's Luke and it's like whoo this
is a completely different style even
though they're doing mostly the same
things it's not new tech they have a
really weird timing to everything and
they have a very hard to predict play
style because you don't play against
someone like that very often all right
so skill number eight is I'd say
adaptation this is a very obvious one
it's the ability to overcome your
opponent as you get more information now
Dao is like famous ly known for being
like impossible to beat in the first to
10 set because it's adaptation is just
that good but this these are people that
do really really well in Long sets I
also think of these players as ones that
have a very diverse flowchart and what
this means is that you're playing your
opponent and your opponent exhausts all
their options they use all their Tech
and you still have many tricks left in
the bag and you have still have many
different ideas and ways to counteract
their strategies and once they
counteract that they're out of steam and
you win the set right mk's Leo is known
for the game four comebacks where
basically he might be losing a set or
he's winning a set and it goes down to
game four and MK Leo has insanely High
win rate on game four and if he wins
game four he's most likely going to win
game five because his adaptation is just
that strong all right the last two
around mental I actually think your
mental game is very very important for
fighting games it's something that
transfers over very well so I could just
keep in the one I I split up into two
and I think the first is your clutch
Factor like people that play best under
pressure and just don't choke now I
think it's easier to come up with
examples of people that choke
unfortunately right I'm not going to
name the names but think of the amount
of people that constantly get second or
third place and they feel like they're
cursed but there's also people
conversely that win the vast majority of
time they're put in these clutch
situations I think Justin Wong is a very
very good example you look at his
previous Evo runs you look at his
ability to clutch out set I think Justin
won's definitely there I also feel like
there are players that have a
disproportionate win rate when it comes
to critical sets think getting into top
eight of a major or top six if you're
Evo because they have to show ads or
winning the grand finals of a tournament
and I think men Rd is a very good
example of this when they have a
critical set to win whether it's Grand
finals or getting into a top eight if I
feel like the percent win rate just
skyrockets and sometimes they can look
very very hard to beat all right I think
the last one is like work ethic or Grit
I don't know what you want to call it
but it's like the power to keep
persevering like fighting games are hard
right and it's very easy to get
discouraged it's very easy to grind out
a lot of hours go to a tournament get
watched and be like oh this isn't for me
like oh no what was me or like you play
a new game and then you don't do as well
as you want you're like all right well
this game's trash right you guys have
probably seen ton of that on Twitter and
I think these are the players that have
the power to keep persevering through
difficulties or adversities right the
people that have the ability to sing
tons of hours into the game have a
positive mindset and just keep going at
it right I think Brian that's a really
good example of this being able to do
content creation have a job and compete
at a high level you have to have really
good work ethic and git same thing with
like players like Mochi same same idea
like MiMi streams like insanely cracked
amount of hours and he's still a content
creator too it's it's a very important
skill I think it's also how like having
a positive mindset now like that's kind
of hard to tell like you know the
mindset people are in but be able to
like not beat yourself up and take the
right things from A Loss I think is very
very important as well now what the hell
do we do with all this information now I
like to think of it as like a stat chart
I used an Excel graph because I don't
know how to make one of those but you
get the idea that like people just have
different skills they're better at and
worse at and I think the first step to
getting better fundamentals is being
able to figure out where you're strong
at and where you're weaker at right and
the areas you're weaker at are going to
be easier to improve upon right because
improving upon the stuff you're already
really really cracked on you're just
going to get diminishing returns and I
feel like you need all of these skills
in order to be a top player it's really
really hard to you know rely on a couple
of these skills and just have like
terrible game knowledge and terrible
mental and be terrible at labbing and
have the reactions of a 70-year-old dude
it's just not going to happen right so
to me you have to focus on your weak
areas and as I look back at this I
thought about where I was when I first
started playing fighting games and again
these numbers are just kind of up like
no one's at 10 right no one has 10
fundamentals for everything I obviously
think I have better fundamentals than
most of the fgc so like it's not
proportional to population but this is
example of 2016 diphone and I think
looking back at the three areas I
improved the most were probably randomst
mental and grit and it's kind like dap
got more random what the hell but yeah I
think this is actually something I
deliberately approve upon I actually I
forgot to mention Sonic Fox at all but
Sonic Fox is one of the players that I
would study their gameplay and I'd be
like how the hell is Sonic Fox win
they're just doing the most random [ __ ]
they're getting away with it I want to
be able to do that and so by studying
Sonic and figuring out why they do some
things that they do and also taking like
a more intuitive approach to the game
cuz I used to play very like by the book
and I realized that while that is viable
that's not 100% the way I want to play
the game and by bringing in like more
Instinct and intuition into the game I
was able to like kind of get better at
Randomness and also like using my
intuition being like all right in order
to be random you have to choose good
options and rotate them appropriately
right and same thing with M mental and
grit I honestly think you know 2016
diaphone did not take care of their
health very well I'm going keep it real
and so I think a lot of that was hitting
the gym focusing on diet focusing on
lifestyle right and also like you know
for like mental and like being able to
like deal with clutch situations there's
a lot of books on the topic right sports
psychology is a very important thing
Sports athletes that get paid much more
money than Esports athletes focus on
sports psychology team sports
psychologists right there's a lot of
information out there that can help you
improve your mental game or and grid so
that's where I improved upon but I think
any of these areas you can improve upon
you know I was kind of thinking about
this exercise when I was putting this
together I'm like damn my reactions are
kind of
ass and then I Googled it right how to
improve reaction time and there's like a
million things right and kind of the
main takeaway is like yeah diet exercise
definitely help and actually looking at
my reaction times my reaction times have
improved iPhone a few years ago probably
had like a frame or two slower reaction
times but I also think it's like I need
to physically train my reactions more in
game so doing like drills where I try to
whiff kind of like what Dao used to do
where he'd react to different stimuli
and then triy to reacting to it Bas I
need to drill my reactions more and then
I could take the learnings from that to
other games and focus on like playing
more patient and practice reacting in
match right just off the top of my head
how you'd improve at some of the other
ones composure it's like the people that
Panic DP too much how do you get rid of
a panic DP habit force yourself not to
DP you play matches you don't focus on
when you're losing you're focus on not
dping right and I think that's like how
you have to go about composure is you
have to purposely put yourself in
situations where you're forced to play
lame and you're forced to stay composed
execution I think that that's just
repetition repetition the more fighting
games you play you'll just naturally get
execution uh game knowledge and labbing
are both something I've been I I was
just like kind of good at because you
know like like science major very
analytical mind I think I kind of
transferred a lot of those skills to
game knowledge and labbing but honestly
like probably just comes down to
spending time in training mode and
trying to force yourself to come up with
different ideas and force yourself to
understand how the game works if you
understand how the game works you'll
understand why different situations play
out the way they do I I feel like a lot
of people that are bad at game knowledge
don't understand why things happen i' be
like oh the game just randomly decided
to do that and if you guys know anything
about games nothing really happens
randomly unless it's Street Fighter 2
because it's hard Cod to be random
anyways uh yes shout to that game same
thing with uniqueness right I I think
often times it's it's really easy to
copy what the top player is doing and
then just do it yourself but again
there's like if if you get really good
game knowledge and labbing I think
naturally uniqueness will come as long
as you kind of take it to the next EX
exension and start implementing that
stuff in match and adaptation I think
grind monsters I think if you play
longer sets you'll just naturally get
better at adaptation so how else can you
use this information so I think it's
pretty obvious that if you're fighting
against someone at your skill level and
that has similar fundamentals to you you
should Target the areas that they're
weak against but how would you fight
against someone like Justin Wong who
probably is the best fundamentals in the
world if not close to it right you have
to think fundamentals don't 100%
correlate with in-game wi rate I know it
sounds kind of counterintuitive but if
you have way more game hours than your
opponent and it feels like nothing is
going your way you're probably targeting
the wrong area of fundamentals to
exploit even if their fundamentals are
better you could still overcome that by
knowing the matchup better or having
your reactions to specific things
trained or knowing more gimmicks or
knowing more scenarios than your
opponent it doesn't matter who you are
Justin Wong myself Dao anyone the first
time I pick up a fighting game it
doesn't matter how good my fundamentals
are they can't carry me through the
impossible so I like to think of
fundamentals as essentially a Time
multiplier right so I might learn a
fighting game you know 1.5 two times as
fast as someone else because I have a
base fundamentals I can rely upon and I
can use to help me learn more
efficiently but fundamentals can't do
the impossible and overcome game
specific skills that you pick up through
playing the game a lot it's kind of like
Shooters where you know a person that's
really good at Shooters can transition
from one game to another because their
aim is just so much better but if you
don't know the mechanics behind you know
the good spots in the map or what Heroes
synergize with which with each other or
The Meta I don't [ __ ] know I don't
play Shooters but you get the idea now
there's one other thing I want to talk
about like I want to include the 11th
category which is like versatility which
is like people that are able to play
like many different characters and play
Styles but the more I think about it I
actually think these are just players
that have really really good
fundamentals so for example Sonic Fox
who's one of the best multi-game players
is able to like pick up made different
characters and play them kind of in
their own style and I think it's just
because their fundamentals are crazy
same thing with Justin right Justin
plays any game they're they're one of
the best at any game they pick up I
think it's just they have crazy
fundamentals those fundamentals give
them the versatility to play the
characters and to play the games that
they want at a high level I kind of just
made 10 categories that felt right to me
but these aren't like the be all end all
definition of fundamentals I'm sure you
could further Define these skills more
like I could break this down to 12
categories I could break this down into
you know execution for example I could
break it down to multiple different
types of execution you know how well can
you play puppet character how well can
you Negative Edge how well can you do
certain inputs how clean are your inputs
how like you know what kind of
controller use how fast can you dash how
fast can you walk block like there's so
many execution things that you could
like Breck it up into different sections
now of course I didn't do that just for
Simplicity sake but you know the
definition of fundamentals I think is
just is very Vape because it's very hard
to Define and the whole point of this is
just to give you like a a framework to
which to think of things and identify
your weak spots so you can improve upon
them anyways guys let me know what you
think I know it's a little different of
a video I'm trying to make more fighting
game knowledge videos so if you like
this please consider like share and
subscribing let me know you want to see
more take care and have a good one