I was at EVO this past week. I ran into Atif and Arslan at a nearby Walgreens. Took pictures with both super cool people in person. When I asked Atif for a picture, he was like “you know me?” I was like brooooo, you’re the best Dragonov in the world!! I was super excited to see Nobi vs Atif but it hurt to see the outcome. Nobi is still my favorite Drag player of all time. He’s still a legend in my books.
One of the reasons more people have much respect for Arslan now is seeing how Atif steam rolled through other pro players. In order to beat someone like Atif you have to be a beast. Like someone said in a previous comment the grand finals were like a Goku vs Vegeta match. Arslan being Goku ofc while Atif being Vegeta, the unstoppable warrior who dominates all warriors across the universe but fails only when he fights Goku.
The two are opposites in style, with Atif being the overwhelming offensive player and Arslan being the greatest defensive player in the game. Though when you watch Atif, you understand just why Arslan had to get so good at defending.😂
It’s not that simple. Atif and arslan fight together on a daily basis as training partners. If arslan wasn’t so familiar with atif’s play style, there’s a good chance Atif would’ve taken their match. Dragunov is significantly stronger than Nina, even if Nina is top 3 best characters in the game.
@@The_Buff_Guy But Arslan's natural playstyle is also a big factor against Atif because Arslan plays poke heavy sstyle and he doesn't really allow players like Dragunov to get their offense going. Arslan suffocates his opponents by being in their face and poking them to death.
@@yellowscarlightningscream8347 this is true. It also is worth noting that Nina is very anti-dragunov. She’s got the movement to easily evade dragunov’s big pressure tools, plus she has blonde bomb. A very powerful anti-pressure tool. Mid, power crush, heat engager, gives great follow up and Oki from heat dash, only -14 so dragunov can only launch it in heat. Very strong tool vs dragunov, it’s the perfect counter play to the character. That helped him a TON in their set.
@@hamzakhurshid9000 bro I was waiting to see Jimmy do something nice with Bryan lmao bro didn't get to play the game. Atif didn't let him breathe at all
@@sleepybean9903 yeah the crowd and live chat were like that during CEO24 too 😂. But bro smashed Keisuke there and silenced the crowd too. Typical finale for pakistani players .........
6-0 vs Jimmy, 6-0 vs Keisuke and 9-0 vs Nobi. This is serious and hilarious at the same time. Totally decimated the veteran Bryan, Drag and Kazuya masters. What a genius. As a Pakistani fan, i can tell yiu that he is considered the most talented player. Arslan considers him his toughest opponent. His 10 hour Leo mauled Anakin at 2022 rev major. Even his team members were shocked when he picked Leo.
Yeah those saying he only win playing OP character watch his matche, he did the same to Anakin using LEO what he did tk Nobi here and that wjmas his first ever international tournament @@coquifrog
As a Pakistani i know how atif is even more genius with Leo and Feng. He just used Dragonuv for the convenience. Even arslan had no answer to his feng but arslan is a genius and still won....
what makes it more crazy is that Arslan made him change drag LOL. You basically give the biggest beat down in Tekken history only to have to force to another character in the next round because you can't answer your opponents attacks
@@StriveToday no. I usually don’t record but the only clips I had was the grand final reset between Punk and bigbird in sf6 and the end of the ggst grand final ending. I’m still upset I didn’t record the Heihachi trailer but I was shocked, so I forgot too
Its not just that Atif is relentless on offense, its also that Atif plays perfect defense in the few moments where his opponents get a turn and somehow always makes the most optimal decisions to get launch punishes, heat engagers, etc.
@@soilsminor4715 yeah Atif probably can beat 90% of all players using their own characters. It's his Tekken IQ, his reaction speeds and his gameplay that make him who he is. also helps that he gets to practice with other monsters like Arslan every day. Pakistani players just play aggressive. It's like the rest of the world was playing Tekken differently and now realise it wasn't optimal. Pakistani players are bread to play tough
Man you gotta feel bad for Nobi. Crawling through such a large pool of players to get there only for Atif to just take a massive dump on him like he was green.
The fact Atif did this to NOBI man. One of the most OG and dominant Dragunov players in recent Tekken history. Man, the crowd was sad as hell watching Atif beat the stuffing out of Nobi’s corpse.
@@yellowscarlightningscream8347 In tournament Arslan is good. But for RU-vid videos. Arslan said . That I play for experiment n testing new things. But people play to beat me..😂
The crazy thing is Atif lost to NO ONE except arslan. Pakistani tekken DOMINATED the whole scene. Imagine just 4 pakistani's out of 4000+ people participating in evo and 2 of them reaching the GRAND FINALS. Insane.
4th one is currently not even part of offline pakistan FGC. Aqeel Zahoor moved to US in 2023. Even then he was mostly an online player because Karachi didn't have a world class offline scene like Lahore, Faisalabad or Gujranwala. Only 3 travelled from Pakistan. Aqeel still did amazing despite barely playing in online US, placed 65th.
Remember during the set of *Atif Vs Nobi* , not a'lot people cheered/ praised Atif, just Nobi. That's why during his set, he was pissed. So, he started speedrunning..... 12:26 In the crowd, when he won said: *Are you not entertained?!* 🤷 Remember to Check the full video of Evo 2024 live stream day 3 Top 6 (Tekken 8)
That was hard to watch. Especially the way TMM put it with the best Dragunov in the world fights one of the best players in the world who went "I'm going to play your character". That must be so disheartening
7:35 that's exactly the face I made in that moment when I watched the EVO stream, and proceeded to do that for the rest of the set. Sheesh, 9-0. That was f*cking brutal xD
I heard the crowd was only chanting for Nobi and kind of booing Atif which is why Atif did the pop off at the end at the crowd. So i would take it personal as well 😂.
This is exactly why we keep watching your videos. Spotting moves that are invisible to us and then commentating on them. You are the best MainMan. Keep it up bro.
You miss the point. Atif steamrolled everyone (excluding Nobi in the first match they played), and the reason why is due to Arslan being comfortable with Atif’s game play. I also believe poking > oppressive aggression, which is why Nina stomped Dragunov. Had Atif used Feng from the beginning, it might have been a different outcome.
@@funkrates4778 exactly, atif won the first match from drag and he should have switched to feng after losing his first match from drag, we defo getting a reset and things would have been more interesting then.
That's the attitude. Drag is really strong, but he is beatable if you pick up on players' tendacies. There's alot of tier whores out there, so a lot of them get complacent and therefore punishable.
at this point you have to beat the player. Ranked is the Dragunov gauntlet, im sure you’ll know Drag better than your main by the time any balancing is done.
@ksander_9712 I'm a Drag main, a real one, so that's been my only option each time. Thankfully, his best moves are so good that scrubs can't help but spam them all the time, so he's not too big of an issue for me personally since I try to play a little bit more conservative than most Drag mains.
bro watching atif was crazy i havent played since launch and seeing him and arslan in grand finals got me back into the game and while i was a drag main at launch i play lars and jin now but this level of tekken is fucking insane bro
Funny how some people blamed the character as if the character fully carried the players like they have no actual skill. They would do anything to win its not that easy to win in big tournament like evo. Its like in tekken 7 when akuma is blamed for being op but the execution needed is relied on the player themselves and most of the time there is only one player that can actually make use of him in tournament and only atif succeed in doing that. In the end its only about the player, not their character pick choices
The Akuma comparison is wrong. That character was/is broken. It's not fair that if a player has the execution they get infinite reward. Bad character, Bad balanced i hope we never see something like that again.
@cosmedcarton i dont think u get the reason why i bring up the comparison of akuma and dragunov. What im saying is both character were broken on release, but there is no one winning big tournament before they were patched. After both got nerfed, in a similar fashion there is no one winning big tournament with the 2 character except for atif. As i said they would do whatever to win even resorting to meta bcs its not easy to compete in a stacked tournament like this. I agree that akuma is bad character but still having skill should actually reward the player and the skill is not only about execution but also a combination of spacing, defense and reading of the opponent. Apparently atif has all of them and he proved that by not giving a single win to nobi and keisuke. Nobi mains dragunov for his entire life but still cant win against atif. Keisuke kazuya gave atif a hard time with his insane execution and defense but having his gameplan easily figured makes it fall short. Having good execution alone wont guarantee u to be an evo champion after all. The simplicity of the character wont mean anything if u dont have the other skill like atif has.
Atif has an aggressive playstyle, and so he picks aggressive or dangerous looking characters. Like Akuma or Dragunov. He's like an aggressive Anti-Hero, not humble like Arslan who plays with girls. (female characters xD) Anyways, Atif seems like the new Anti-Hero to Arslan's saga and we're all here for it!
10:34 the devs did it by removing the Pakistani specialists characters or nerfing them too hard ex Zafina Steve Kazumi and Marduk. They were forced to pick up new characters
Funnily enough, when Arslan picked Dragunov to prove a point (his tier list), Atif still managed to beat him with Kazuya. So yep, it really isn't Nobi being under the weather, Atif is just that good. I'd even say his core fundamentals (movement, execution and character/mechanics knowledge) are overall the best in the world right now, and the only areas where he truly is weaker than someone like Arslan are his confidence in himself and his ability to handle stress (at least for now). Just my opinion though.
The top Pakistanis are what we thought the top Koreans were years ago.. Right now they’re simply untouchable.. We’re in Tekkistan for the time being. Incredible competitors.
yeah he was 3rd place Combo breaker, 5th Dreamhack Dallas and has won 2 dojos in Pakistan already. Insane. Him losing early to a mostly unknown US player in pools made his run impossible. He still placed top 24.
Atif won TWT finals of 2022 and Also Defeated Arslan in Local Pak tournament finals , and this year he was comming straight out of being CEO 2024 Champion...
This reminds me of when i picked up tekken 4 at 6 years old after my only experience being tekken 3 mokujin for 2 matches in an arcade and getting my ass beat by my older brothers.
Atif is fuckin relentless, but Arslan slowing him down is like a charmer making a snake dance. Its amazing. Pakistanis are on a different level. The world needs to catch up.
