Captain Zack
Banned via Administration
OMG i wanna place in the top 8 for all events tomorrow. and i wanna win or something idk
-
Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!
You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!
The Louisiana Thread: Flarefox Forever - We are alive.
- Thread starter VVB
- Start date
Big-Cat
Challenge accepted.
You can be like brothers and share the same bathroom.
SD Grandmaster Hero
Smash Apprentice
Thanks everyone at the Bi-Weekly! Had a ton of fun and everyone was super nice, looking forward to coming back next time.
Magi_
Smash Apprentice
confirmed going
lessdodis
lessdodis
Big-Cat
Challenge accepted.
I'll be bringing a 360 setup. I'll have Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken Tag 2, KOF XIII, and if I can update it, Skullgirls. I'll be bringing my monitor, arcade stick, and one wireless controller. You're free to bring arcade sticks if you have any.
Last edited:
iceman48
Smash Journeyman
Well, if Nik and Sudai are goin, I'm going. I don't want them to feel like the oldest ones there.
Edit: I really just posted this to see all the Luigis.
Edit: I really just posted this to see all the Luigis.
Last edited:
Sudai
Stuff here
Only 6? I am disappoint.
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
Looks interesting! I hope to enjoy Super Smash Bros 4 to the fullest regardless of the gameplay changes.
Big-Cat
Challenge accepted.
If that's the case, join me in playing Tag 2 during down time. That'll get you very ready for Smash 4.
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
I have a SFxTekken FightStick I'm looking to sell. Just tossing that around.
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
Tag 2? Don't get what it implies, but I think Super Smash Bros 4 will be enjoyable. I only hope I don't get bore of the game, that's all.
BSL
B-B-B-BLAMM!!!
Tekken Tag 2, I believe.
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
Tekken? I see. Well, I haven't played Tekken in a long time, but it was somewhat fun. Don't remember how to play it anymore.
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
OOOPS Nevermind. I was soo Confused.
Last edited:
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
That's fine. I don't really play Tekken, but you did nothing wrong. No need to feel guilty. I was only expressing how long has it been since I played it and forgot about it.
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
I realized what you were talking about and it was completely a misunderstanding on my part.
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
Oh, okay. I understand.
Captain Zack
Banned via Administration
OMG robert and skjet are stealing this thread
Big-Cat
Challenge accepted.
It's been a running joke for me that Smash 4 is actually a Tekken game. Shielding at any time during a dash, pivot attacks at any time,Smash 4 DI, and now the rage effect. All we're missing is a bear.
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
I'm trying to level up my status from apprentice
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
Running joke? Missing bear? Sounds like a cartoon show. Interesting!
Nikz0r
Smash Apprentice
I mean, I'd never take your bed. But like I'd share it? I ain't even gonna cross that out.
But we def need to hang out sometime soon hopefully. Pretty booked up for October but like maybe November? Lol.
Rofl, Sakurai you lazy ****. You take out transformations but leave it as a score item when a match is over... Seriously...
But we def need to hang out sometime soon hopefully. Pretty booked up for October but like maybe November? Lol.
Rofl, Sakurai you lazy ****. You take out transformations but leave it as a score item when a match is over... Seriously...
Captain Zack
Banned via Administration
OMG ggs to everyone at the tourney today. didn't perform the way i wanted to but owell.~
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
I S'D twice in Melee and got knocked out of bracket
Robert Lee
Smash Apprentice
How was the tournament? I didn't go, but I would like to know how fierce the competition was?
Sudai
Stuff here
As much as I love you and love ripping on Sakurai, I'm gonna go ahead and bet transformation time still ticks up if you eat a mushroom, maybe even a starman.
Magi_
Smash Apprentice
just copy pasta'ing my fb post:
3rd in pm teams (good **** zack, after we lost our first round I didn't think we would get 3rd, YoungBlood 2strong.)
3rd in pm singles
JSalt you better go to lagg so I can push your **** in with that runback (jk gg's, I'm a choke master who loves spilling his mom's spaghetti)
probably the best I've played, I think I got kinda lucky with my bracket, and that choke in loser's finals really got to my head, but overall had a good time.
3rd in pm teams (good **** zack, after we lost our first round I didn't think we would get 3rd, YoungBlood 2strong.)
3rd in pm singles
JSalt you better go to lagg so I can push your **** in with that runback (jk gg's, I'm a choke master who loves spilling his mom's spaghetti)
probably the best I've played, I think I got kinda lucky with my bracket, and that choke in loser's finals really got to my head, but overall had a good time.
It was good meeting people today, Zack and skjet. I hope I can play more games with y'all some time. Shout outs to Sars for being a homie and a really good teams partner. Reiterated I'll get you one day Jnig. Congrats to Magi for getting third. All in all a great tourney.
Last edited:
'V'
Smash Lord
Monthly Godlike #3 Top Results
P:M Singles - (30 Entrants)
1. Lee Martin /
2. JSalt
3. Magi
4. V / /
5. Dope
5. King Ramses
7. CakeMatrix /
7. TaylorHJ /
Melee Singles - (22 Entrants)
1. Lee Martin
2. TaylorHJ /
3. Dope
4. Ramses
5. Kenny
5. Shu
7. JSalt
7. Sars_Pirate
P:M Doubles - (9 Teams)
1. Lee Martin + V
2. TaylorHJ + KingRamses
3. Magi + Captain Zack
Melee Doubles - (7 Teams)
1. Lee Martin + TaylorHJ
2. Dope + King Ramses
3. V + JSalt
P:M Singles - (30 Entrants)
1. Lee Martin
/ 2. JSalt
3. Magi
4. V
/ / 5. Dope
5. King Ramses
7. CakeMatrix
/ 7. TaylorHJ
/ Melee Singles - (22 Entrants)
1. Lee Martin
2. TaylorHJ
/ 3. Dope
4. Ramses
5. Kenny
5. Shu
7. JSalt
7. Sars_Pirate
P:M Doubles - (9 Teams)
1. Lee Martin + V
2. TaylorHJ + KingRamses
3. Magi + Captain Zack
Melee Doubles - (7 Teams)
1. Lee Martin + TaylorHJ
2. Dope + King Ramses
3. V + JSalt
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
I haven't played Project M all week. I'm suprised I got 12th out of 30. Even with warmups I was rusty when I was playing friendlies with V
Nikz0r
Smash Apprentice
That's probably true... In retrospect it might even include Mega evolutions and Giga Mac. FailFish
Dafuq is going on here...?
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
Blucario get REKT.That's probably true... In retrospect it might even include Mega evolutions and Giga Mac. FailFish
Dafuq is going on here...?
Last edited:
artofskjet
Smash Journeyman
Transformation times are Bowser.jr's final smash, Lucario's and Charizard's Mega Evo also Final SmashI mean, I'd never take your bed. But like I'd share it? I ain't even gonna cross that out.
But we def need to hang out sometime soon hopefully. Pretty booked up for October but like maybe November? Lol.
Rofl, Sakurai you lazy ****. You take out transformations but leave it as a score item when a match is over... Seriously...
Big-Cat
Challenge accepted.
Rapid anal pounding.That's probably true... In retrospect it might even include Mega evolutions and Giga Mac. FailFish
Dafuq is going on here...?
BSL
B-B-B-BLAMM!!!
Oh ok.
'V'
Smash Lord
Dedede comin' fo dat BOOTY!!!That's probably true... In retrospect it might even include Mega evolutions and Giga Mac. FailFish
Dafuq is going on here...?
'V'
Smash Lord
So after Monthly Godlike #3, I wrote a bit of a novel in the LA Smash Facebook group in order to reflect on the events that transpired there and my thoughts on the matters:
So I'm a little late getting this out. Sorry, I wasn't around a keyboard or anything for quite some time after the Monthly today. However, because of that, I was able to reflect on the events that transpired today:
I was pretty hype coming in to the Golden Chariot today for what was supposed to be my final tournament for the Singles metagame for both Melee and P:M. And because I knew it was going to be my last one, I decided that I was gonna pull out as much stuff from my bag of tricks and knowledge as possible. I wanted to do something that I'd never done in tournament before, and that to completely go 100% even going as far as using some of my pocket characters.
P:M Doubles - Fun and good. Lee and I performed really well again and got 1st.
P:M Singles - Crazily enough, I didn't use Fox (my main character) at all. The part of the bracket that I was in didn't seem to have the need for him. Instead, I used a different character. Some of you may already know that I've had a ROB in my pocket for the past 2-3 weeks and I've been playing him in friendlies at The Cove. I've watched DF's ROB quite a bit at all of the most recent P:M tourneys that we've had and I've had quite a lot of experience dealing with Sudai's Brawl ROB from the distant past as well as messing around with him myself, so I had a pretty good idea on how he played.
Now ROB is a pretty controversial character among some of the more vocal members of this group. Some players have a great deal of trouble fighting him. I used ROB today and got 2 tourney wins against 2 of my biggest smash rivals in my Singles career even though ROB is not a very liked character. So why did I use ROB? Because I wanted to use all that I had at my disposal in order to win in a competitive setting just like every other player, albeit I also used Meta Knight for one of the sets because the situation had called for it. That time I was playing the counterpick system to my advantage.
Do I feel bad about it? Not really. I was playing to win, which is what you're supposed to do in a tourney setting. I saw some weaknesses and I exposed them. All competitive games have this going for them, especially the traditional fighting games. I got some flack for it, but at the end of the day I got the wins for playing 100% to the best of my abilities like everyone else does. So instead of feeling too bad about it, I felt proud to be able to do so well in the tourney today. I went on and eventually lost to both Magi and JSalt and finished out the tourney in 4th place. Pretty freakin' good.
Melee Doubles - Teaming with JSalt was something that I never got to experience in any smash game, and I never imagined the first time would be in Melee. Needless to say it was a really fun time. We had some really hype moments, especially against the Double Falcon team of Quin and Ywara. Lee got us in a 1v2, though. He does not like to go down without a fight (LOL). We got 3rd place.
Melee Singles - Now normally I would've been excited because this was the last part of the tourney and what would probably be the last part of my Smash Singles career until Smash 4 came out. However, that was not the case at all. My first match was pretty much like normal. The second match, however, not so much. It was unlike anything I've felt in a really long time. The mood was very dark, awkward, and empty. There was always a feeling of anxiety in the air and there was no communication between me an my opponent. It was awful. I guess it also didn't help that my play was extremely sloppy, but that's beside the point. I ended up losing that match pretty convincingly. Immediately after it was all done, I pretty much fell into a short depression, but it wasn't because I lost. It was because at that point I realized something very important. I wasn't having fun anymore. It was a terrible sensation that I never want to feel again. This was not the ending that I wanted. When I realized that, I immediately forfeited my 3rd match and placed 9th.
Commentating - OMG I LOVE COMMENTATING SOOOO MUCH!! Shoutouts to Waveshine Studios for being awesome and streaming the event!! I even got interviewed after I got knocked out of P:M Singles. I felt so honored to be part of the commentary for everything. I really wanna do more!! It was soooo fun!!
At the end of the day, Monthly Godlike #3 was cool. And it was nice to see everyone there, especially Roni, who I don't see very often these days.
After my first success with ROB and Meta Knight, the atmosphere immediately felt a little awkward. I knew right then and there that salt was spilled as my opponent didn't shake my hand at the end of set and directed an obscenity at me. I shrugged it off and treated it as a brief moment of frustration on his part. No one really likes to lose (some moreso than others). Later on in one of my other matches, I heard some loud obscenities coming from behind me as I was losing. Someone was calling me a fraud and wanting the other player to "**** me up". Seems like I was being cheered AGAINST, and that's something that's never happened to me before. The feeling was new, but I still shrugged it off because most people tend to have favorites in certain matches and some players generally don't cheer for the player that just beat them. It didn't really start to get to me UNTIL the reasoning behind my Singles retirement came into question. It seemed like this player thought that the reason behind my retirement plan was because "I can't win, so I switch to a meta that I CAN win". Needless to say that I was very hurt by this statement because not only was it very derogatory towards my potential as a player, but it was just blatantly untrue. That being said, it's about time that I made this point very clear:
The reasoning behind my retirement from Singles wasn't because I feel like I'm better at Doubles than Singles or anything of the sort. If memory serves me correctly, I haven't won a single Doubles tourney at all in my Melee career. Not even once. I've won more Melee SINGLES tourneys than Doubles tourneys, and I've only won two...
The truth is that I'm looking into other things for the future. I've been talking to Nick Seghers about this for quite some time now, so it really wasn't a "spur of the moment" thing like some people may think it was. I wanna focus more on TO'ing, streaming events, commentating, and helping out the community in any way that I possibly can. Along side that, there are other communities that I am a part of (cosplay and lolita) that I want be more involved in. I play other fighting games (not just Smash). I'm graduating soon. There are so many factors that went into this decision that I feel that I just won't be able to spend that much more time to devote to everything, so sacrifices have to be made. I chose to sacrifice Singles.
If anyone remembers, my actual ORIGINAL plan was to retire from Melee completely and just focus on P:M Singles and Doubles. I then weighed my options and found that I didn't care too too much for P:M Singles mostly because the game just wasn't finished and wouldn't be finished for a long time. I also realized that Melee Doubles was my absolute favorite metagame, so I traded that for P:M Singles. I made this decision purely off of what I had the most fun with. I guess (in the end) that may make me look like some kind of filthy casual to some players, but that's how I roll. I love Doubles.
The Aftermath - After all was said and done and I lost P:M Singles, I was interviewed on the Waveshine Studios stream. Getting to talk about my thoughts and experiences on stream got me thinking about a lot of incidents that had been happening within the last year of my Smash career up to this point. I remember I had quit smash altogether for a long time up until last year's EVO, which inspired me to get back into the game and revisit all of the cool people in the community (moreso the Melee side). It was a rocky start at first because I was so rusty, but the more games I watched and the more games that I lost, I started to relearn everything about the game. After that, it was all about learning P:M and getting better at the neutral game in general. It started hard, but then something just sorta... clicked...
My slow movement started becoming much faster and a lot more smooth. My approaches were becoming more safe. My edgeguards were getting better. I found myself using more than one character in an effective manner. I didn't panic as much whenever I was getting pressured. I was using BETTER characters. It was finally happening. I was starting to finally reach a new level in improvements, something I hadn't felt in years. It started out in P:M, but then transitioned quickly over to Melee. A lot of the knowledge that I had picked up from other fighting games went into play as well. It was a great feeling and I felt proud to be able to finally reach a new plateau. Some people were not so happy, though...
It wasn't long after this that more people started going to The Cove for Monday Nights. The friends that I was playing with who knew me from the past were very surprised by the new level that I had recently achieved. I was using all of my new good characters and finding the holes in their playstyles and punishing all of their bad habits. Some of those guys didn't really care for this and were frustrated, moreso towards the characters I was using than anything else. Back in the day, it was very much UNHEARD of that I would go towards picking up better characters. So I guess it's time to elaborate on another thing:
Way back when I was first started to get good in Melee, my main character was Zelda (still is to this day). Zelda's not a very good character in Melee, but I chose to main her anyway due to my attachment to the character herself. I was very outspoken in my disdain towards top tier characters and I wanted to do my best while not having to resort to playing one. As I got better, I found my self actually WINNING tourney matches with Zelda, which was a shock to many players (including myself). It was then soon after that that I found myself being the only low tier main to place relatively well among players who all mained high to top tier characters, which was a really good feeling. I guess you could say that I was the "low tier hero" of LA Melee and that's what everyone remembered me by.
Eventually, I ran into some problems maining Zelda before Brawl came out. One of those problems was the character Marth. Marth had a really good matchup against Zelda. It wasn't unwinnable for me, but it was almost a hopeless battle for me because I had such a mental block against him. It didn't help that all 4 of our top players at the time all used Marth and that most of our community thought that he was the best character in the game at the time. Naturally this didn't do much to help my self-esteem. Every time a I faced a Marth, I felt helpless. It was pretty depressing. Needless to say that I wasn't having much fun playing Melee anymore because there wasn't much that I could do with myself and my character, so I took a break from it and waited for Brawl to come out.
Now back on the subject of The Cove Monday Nights, people were getting really salty and complaining about the characters that I was using. It was pretty annoying to deal with, especially because I had to go through explaining how it's not an uncommon thing to pick up multiple good characters, especially in other fighting games. It goes without saying that a lot of good players will pick up good characters to boost their chances at winning tourney matches. Sorry, guys. I'm a better player now and I've learned from the past. I'm not the measly "low tier hero" that everyone still wants me to be. I got tired of feeling helpless in dumb matchups, especially ones that I can't get a firm grip on. I'm going to do what I can to get passed them, and that includes changing characters.
I've been noticing that some people tend to get really upset with my play, character choices, and improvements as a player. To those that have this problem, I've got some advice for you. Control your salt and calm down during your matches. The more you allow yourself to freak out, the more prone you are to letting your weaknesses get exploited. You've got to take the time to fully evaluate the other player's playstyle with the character in question. With so many characters in the game, you're not going to automatically be good against ALL of them. You have to work hard at it, even if means a bunch of failure to get there.
Don't be afraid to pick up pocket characters. Top players have them all the time in EVERY fighting game (melee and P:M are no exception). Watch people's matches. I can't stress the importance on this tip. People tend to get disappointed because I don't play that many friendlies at tourneys. Half of the reason I don't play friendlies is because I want to learn more from watching high level matches. There could always be something new to learn whether it's from a character's possible setups to a certain player's playstyle, etc. The other half of the reason is because I like watching hype matches. It's just interesting to me.
Hopefully I was able to shed some light on what's been going through my mind this past year of my return to smash. Pretty much Monthly Godlike #3 allowed me some really good time to meditate and reflect on my improved attitude as a player. Thanks to all who took the time to read all of this rant. Make love and not war, guys. In the end, all we have is each other in this community. It'd be a shame if beautiful things were torn apart because of small disputes in video games.
Peace out.
tl;dr version: I used a pocket ROB to win against 2 of my long-term rivals in the P:M tourney. A lot of Salt was spilled by one of them. Monthly Godlike #3 was awesome. Can't wait to do more.
So I'm a little late getting this out. Sorry, I wasn't around a keyboard or anything for quite some time after the Monthly today. However, because of that, I was able to reflect on the events that transpired today:
I was pretty hype coming in to the Golden Chariot today for what was supposed to be my final tournament for the Singles metagame for both Melee and P:M. And because I knew it was going to be my last one, I decided that I was gonna pull out as much stuff from my bag of tricks and knowledge as possible. I wanted to do something that I'd never done in tournament before, and that to completely go 100% even going as far as using some of my pocket characters.
P:M Doubles - Fun and good. Lee and I performed really well again and got 1st.
P:M Singles - Crazily enough, I didn't use Fox (my main character) at all. The part of the bracket that I was in didn't seem to have the need for him. Instead, I used a different character. Some of you may already know that I've had a ROB in my pocket for the past 2-3 weeks and I've been playing him in friendlies at The Cove. I've watched DF's ROB quite a bit at all of the most recent P:M tourneys that we've had and I've had quite a lot of experience dealing with Sudai's Brawl ROB from the distant past as well as messing around with him myself, so I had a pretty good idea on how he played.
Now ROB is a pretty controversial character among some of the more vocal members of this group. Some players have a great deal of trouble fighting him. I used ROB today and got 2 tourney wins against 2 of my biggest smash rivals in my Singles career even though ROB is not a very liked character. So why did I use ROB? Because I wanted to use all that I had at my disposal in order to win in a competitive setting just like every other player, albeit I also used Meta Knight for one of the sets because the situation had called for it. That time I was playing the counterpick system to my advantage.
Do I feel bad about it? Not really. I was playing to win, which is what you're supposed to do in a tourney setting. I saw some weaknesses and I exposed them. All competitive games have this going for them, especially the traditional fighting games. I got some flack for it, but at the end of the day I got the wins for playing 100% to the best of my abilities like everyone else does. So instead of feeling too bad about it, I felt proud to be able to do so well in the tourney today. I went on and eventually lost to both Magi and JSalt and finished out the tourney in 4th place. Pretty freakin' good.
Melee Doubles - Teaming with JSalt was something that I never got to experience in any smash game, and I never imagined the first time would be in Melee. Needless to say it was a really fun time. We had some really hype moments, especially against the Double Falcon team of Quin and Ywara. Lee got us in a 1v2, though. He does not like to go down without a fight (LOL). We got 3rd place.
Melee Singles - Now normally I would've been excited because this was the last part of the tourney and what would probably be the last part of my Smash Singles career until Smash 4 came out. However, that was not the case at all. My first match was pretty much like normal. The second match, however, not so much. It was unlike anything I've felt in a really long time. The mood was very dark, awkward, and empty. There was always a feeling of anxiety in the air and there was no communication between me an my opponent. It was awful. I guess it also didn't help that my play was extremely sloppy, but that's beside the point. I ended up losing that match pretty convincingly. Immediately after it was all done, I pretty much fell into a short depression, but it wasn't because I lost. It was because at that point I realized something very important. I wasn't having fun anymore. It was a terrible sensation that I never want to feel again. This was not the ending that I wanted. When I realized that, I immediately forfeited my 3rd match and placed 9th.
Commentating - OMG I LOVE COMMENTATING SOOOO MUCH!! Shoutouts to Waveshine Studios for being awesome and streaming the event!! I even got interviewed after I got knocked out of P:M Singles. I felt so honored to be part of the commentary for everything. I really wanna do more!! It was soooo fun!!
At the end of the day, Monthly Godlike #3 was cool. And it was nice to see everyone there, especially Roni, who I don't see very often these days.
After my first success with ROB and Meta Knight, the atmosphere immediately felt a little awkward. I knew right then and there that salt was spilled as my opponent didn't shake my hand at the end of set and directed an obscenity at me. I shrugged it off and treated it as a brief moment of frustration on his part. No one really likes to lose (some moreso than others). Later on in one of my other matches, I heard some loud obscenities coming from behind me as I was losing. Someone was calling me a fraud and wanting the other player to "**** me up". Seems like I was being cheered AGAINST, and that's something that's never happened to me before. The feeling was new, but I still shrugged it off because most people tend to have favorites in certain matches and some players generally don't cheer for the player that just beat them. It didn't really start to get to me UNTIL the reasoning behind my Singles retirement came into question. It seemed like this player thought that the reason behind my retirement plan was because "I can't win, so I switch to a meta that I CAN win". Needless to say that I was very hurt by this statement because not only was it very derogatory towards my potential as a player, but it was just blatantly untrue. That being said, it's about time that I made this point very clear:
The reasoning behind my retirement from Singles wasn't because I feel like I'm better at Doubles than Singles or anything of the sort. If memory serves me correctly, I haven't won a single Doubles tourney at all in my Melee career. Not even once. I've won more Melee SINGLES tourneys than Doubles tourneys, and I've only won two...
The truth is that I'm looking into other things for the future. I've been talking to Nick Seghers about this for quite some time now, so it really wasn't a "spur of the moment" thing like some people may think it was. I wanna focus more on TO'ing, streaming events, commentating, and helping out the community in any way that I possibly can. Along side that, there are other communities that I am a part of (cosplay and lolita) that I want be more involved in. I play other fighting games (not just Smash). I'm graduating soon. There are so many factors that went into this decision that I feel that I just won't be able to spend that much more time to devote to everything, so sacrifices have to be made. I chose to sacrifice Singles.
If anyone remembers, my actual ORIGINAL plan was to retire from Melee completely and just focus on P:M Singles and Doubles. I then weighed my options and found that I didn't care too too much for P:M Singles mostly because the game just wasn't finished and wouldn't be finished for a long time. I also realized that Melee Doubles was my absolute favorite metagame, so I traded that for P:M Singles. I made this decision purely off of what I had the most fun with. I guess (in the end) that may make me look like some kind of filthy casual to some players, but that's how I roll. I love Doubles.
The Aftermath - After all was said and done and I lost P:M Singles, I was interviewed on the Waveshine Studios stream. Getting to talk about my thoughts and experiences on stream got me thinking about a lot of incidents that had been happening within the last year of my Smash career up to this point. I remember I had quit smash altogether for a long time up until last year's EVO, which inspired me to get back into the game and revisit all of the cool people in the community (moreso the Melee side). It was a rocky start at first because I was so rusty, but the more games I watched and the more games that I lost, I started to relearn everything about the game. After that, it was all about learning P:M and getting better at the neutral game in general. It started hard, but then something just sorta... clicked...
My slow movement started becoming much faster and a lot more smooth. My approaches were becoming more safe. My edgeguards were getting better. I found myself using more than one character in an effective manner. I didn't panic as much whenever I was getting pressured. I was using BETTER characters. It was finally happening. I was starting to finally reach a new level in improvements, something I hadn't felt in years. It started out in P:M, but then transitioned quickly over to Melee. A lot of the knowledge that I had picked up from other fighting games went into play as well. It was a great feeling and I felt proud to be able to finally reach a new plateau. Some people were not so happy, though...
It wasn't long after this that more people started going to The Cove for Monday Nights. The friends that I was playing with who knew me from the past were very surprised by the new level that I had recently achieved. I was using all of my new good characters and finding the holes in their playstyles and punishing all of their bad habits. Some of those guys didn't really care for this and were frustrated, moreso towards the characters I was using than anything else. Back in the day, it was very much UNHEARD of that I would go towards picking up better characters. So I guess it's time to elaborate on another thing:
Way back when I was first started to get good in Melee, my main character was Zelda (still is to this day). Zelda's not a very good character in Melee, but I chose to main her anyway due to my attachment to the character herself. I was very outspoken in my disdain towards top tier characters and I wanted to do my best while not having to resort to playing one. As I got better, I found my self actually WINNING tourney matches with Zelda, which was a shock to many players (including myself). It was then soon after that that I found myself being the only low tier main to place relatively well among players who all mained high to top tier characters, which was a really good feeling. I guess you could say that I was the "low tier hero" of LA Melee and that's what everyone remembered me by.
Eventually, I ran into some problems maining Zelda before Brawl came out. One of those problems was the character Marth. Marth had a really good matchup against Zelda. It wasn't unwinnable for me, but it was almost a hopeless battle for me because I had such a mental block against him. It didn't help that all 4 of our top players at the time all used Marth and that most of our community thought that he was the best character in the game at the time. Naturally this didn't do much to help my self-esteem. Every time a I faced a Marth, I felt helpless. It was pretty depressing. Needless to say that I wasn't having much fun playing Melee anymore because there wasn't much that I could do with myself and my character, so I took a break from it and waited for Brawl to come out.
Now back on the subject of The Cove Monday Nights, people were getting really salty and complaining about the characters that I was using. It was pretty annoying to deal with, especially because I had to go through explaining how it's not an uncommon thing to pick up multiple good characters, especially in other fighting games. It goes without saying that a lot of good players will pick up good characters to boost their chances at winning tourney matches. Sorry, guys. I'm a better player now and I've learned from the past. I'm not the measly "low tier hero" that everyone still wants me to be. I got tired of feeling helpless in dumb matchups, especially ones that I can't get a firm grip on. I'm going to do what I can to get passed them, and that includes changing characters.
I've been noticing that some people tend to get really upset with my play, character choices, and improvements as a player. To those that have this problem, I've got some advice for you. Control your salt and calm down during your matches. The more you allow yourself to freak out, the more prone you are to letting your weaknesses get exploited. You've got to take the time to fully evaluate the other player's playstyle with the character in question. With so many characters in the game, you're not going to automatically be good against ALL of them. You have to work hard at it, even if means a bunch of failure to get there.
Don't be afraid to pick up pocket characters. Top players have them all the time in EVERY fighting game (melee and P:M are no exception). Watch people's matches. I can't stress the importance on this tip. People tend to get disappointed because I don't play that many friendlies at tourneys. Half of the reason I don't play friendlies is because I want to learn more from watching high level matches. There could always be something new to learn whether it's from a character's possible setups to a certain player's playstyle, etc. The other half of the reason is because I like watching hype matches. It's just interesting to me.
Hopefully I was able to shed some light on what's been going through my mind this past year of my return to smash. Pretty much Monthly Godlike #3 allowed me some really good time to meditate and reflect on my improved attitude as a player. Thanks to all who took the time to read all of this rant. Make love and not war, guys. In the end, all we have is each other in this community. It'd be a shame if beautiful things were torn apart because of small disputes in video games.
Peace out.
tl;dr version: I used a pocket ROB to win against 2 of my long-term rivals in the P:M tourney. A lot of Salt was spilled by one of them. Monthly Godlike #3 was awesome. Can't wait to do more.
Sapphire Dragon
Smash Master
- Joined
- May 17, 2009
- Messages
- 4,789
- Location
- Let go of the scars that define you.
- NNID
- SapphireRyu
- 3DS FC
- 3351-4374-1516
- Switch FC
- SW-2172-6976-4896
Read most of that. People get salty, but they should learn to deal with pocket characters. It's silly imo that they got salty for you wanting to perform better. People play characters for different and overlapping reasons, it's too complex to put people in a box. Sadly a lot of people do. Here's to you pushing through and letting their salt get swept away in your life's ocean.
Also I quoted that because holy crap, I feel privileged. I remember that last Rocket's Hideout tourney I got to play friendlies with you, Ran, and Sudai. I'm really glad I got to be in on that because even though I'm terrible at smash I at least got to play a friendly with you once, and apparently that's a rare thing. :D
'V'
Smash Lord
Thanks for that!! And hella points for the ocean reference!!Read most of that. People get salty, but they should learn to deal with pocket characters. It's silly imo that they got salty for you wanting to perform better. People play characters for different and overlapping reasons, it's too complex to put people in a box. Sadly a lot of people do. Here's to you pushing through and letting their salt get swept away in your life's ocean.
Also I quoted that because holy crap, I feel privileged. I remember that last Rocket's Hideout tourney I got to play friendlies with you, Ran, and Sudai. I'm really glad I got to be in on that because even though I'm terrible at smash I at least got to play a friendly with you once, and apparently that's a rare thing. :D
Yeah those friendlies we played were really fun!! Sometimes you just gotta sit back and chill for a bit and just play around for fun. I find that most of my friendlies time takes place before the tourney starts, and I also find that that's the best time to get them in because that's the time before salt starts to fly. lol