Bacon&Eggs
Smash Cadet
Hawaii Power Rankings as of 2/25/14:
1. Luigi Ka-Master
2. Firefly
3. Shoyo
4. TerenceLau
5. BaconBDC
6. Ty
7. LethalTrilogy
8. mellowD
9. Dren
10. Fernandeezy
(Writeup as of 2/7/2014)
After many stalls, I am happy to say that Hawaii now has an up-to-date, accurate Power Rankings. There are some close spots that may be open to scrutiny by some, so we decided that I would write a few paragraphs describing the process that went into creating it.
Firstly, I feel as if it's important to detail how the Hawaii SSBM scene came to its current state. Melee in Hawaii suffered a huge decline in the years after Brawl came out. In 2010, our weekly YMCA fests ran out of funding, and all fests and tournaments were hosted out of people's homes or at motels. The last big fest seemed to be Maui Winter Melee, during December 2010 and January 2011, which SilentSpectre attended. After that, there was somewhat of a dry spell. Somewhat successful fests were hosted at the Pagoda Hotel throughout 2011. 2012 had such few and uneventful fests that I honestly cannot remember enough about them to write about them.
In early 2013, two fests/tournaments were again held at the Pagoda Hotel, in March and April. These two were hosted by Ty and Sage visiting from Big Island/California. However, at both fests we were kicked out by security, which earned the fests the names "Paghettofest 1 and 2." Paghettofest 2 was a definite high point for the community, as we were kicked out while the tournament was still in process. Determined to finish, though, the three or four drivers shuttled everyone to Zurkei's house in Kapolei where we wrapped it up, having to remain completely silent so as to not wake his parents up.
After that though, the scene was once again on a hiatus. It wasn't until November, when I decided to host a fest in my hometown suburb of Mililani, that the scene seemed to jump to life again. This fest, dubbed Mililanifest 3 (I had hosted two fests in previous years), was something of a miracle. The primary reason for the event was to have a fest for Smasher Jeremy Ortiz, who was visiting from Connecticut. It didn't seem like it was going to be a particularly big fest--at first it was just myself, Firefly, LaserLimited, and Jeremy. But then, it seemed like all the stars lined up perfectly: Saiki happened to be visiting from Vegas and would be attending. So would Ty, who was flying in from Big Island. Additionally, several new players seemed interested in attending. This led to sort of a domino effect where more and more people wanted to attend, and on the day it seemed like the entire Hawaii community at the time was in my tiny town house. Since too many people arrived later than sooner, we didn't opt for a tournament, but we did have a draft crew battle which was nothing short of epic. Unfortunately, it was my first time streaming, and nobody told me Twitch would delete my videos after a certain amount of time!
After that, I hosted three more Mililanifests, all of which had tournaments as well. The return of tournaments was a huge factor leading to the desire to create a new Power Rankings. I proposed the idea in early December, which seemed to stir up a lot of discussion. We ended up doing this long, drawn-out process to decide who would be on the panel, which was so boring and tedious that I will not bore the reader by describing it here. To cut to the chase, the panel ended up being myself, Firefly, Ty and Shoyo.
Once we had the panel, however, we found it really difficult to get a discussion going between the four of us at the same time. We made plans to talk IRL which kept falling through. But in the mean time we were having the Mililanifest tournaments which were ultimately giving us more data to work with. Discussion was stalled all the way until late January, when Felix Zampaga AKA "Android" hosted a fest in his garage in the city of Kapolei. This fest was our most successful in a while, with the tournament having the biggest turnout in perhaps a year, and with attendees Luigi Ka-Master and Soranaka, two faces whom we hadn't seen in quite a while.
After that, we decided it was time to buckle down and pump these rankings out. We decided to all make our personal top ten and then to compare and contrast. The requirements for being considered was that the player had to have entered a singles tournament in the past six months and he had to have been living in the state for at least four months. This is what we came up with:
1. Luigi Ka-Master
2. Firefly/Shoyo
4. TerenceLau
5. BaconBDC/Ty
7. LethalTrilogy/mellowD
9. Dren
10. Fernandeezy/Sheik'a'Link
The ties were the close points where we needed a lot of discussion on.
Firstly, Fernandeezy vs. Sheik'a'Link. The two had never played a tournament or money match against each other and both had pretty even results against others. Sheik'a'Link is a new player, having moved here all the way from the island of Pohnpei. He has shown a rapid learning rate and managed to tie for fifth at one of the Mililanifests. Fernandeezy has been playing for longer though, and has gotten similar results in recent history. Because of the lack of set between the two we opted to actually have them tied on the rankings and to later break the tie with an official set. Stay tuned for that!
Dren, a former top Brawl player, has now converted to Melee! He is a very solid Doctor Mario and has beaten such names as: mellowD, Fernandeezy, and Felix, and he has taken a tournament set against myself as well. Because of all this we decided that ninth was a very justifiable place for him.
mellowD, who rocks the yellow Mario, is an old school player, being active since the very early days. LethalTrilogy, on the other hand, is another converted Brawl player, playing a very nasty Falco. LT has undoubtedly performed better in recent tournaments than mellowD, who lost to Dren and Void in the latest one. LT managed to place seventh, while mellowD placed thirteenth. Although Ty initially disagreed, the panel eventually decided to place LT above.
Myself versus Ty was perhaps the most difficult to resolve. I am of the opinion that we are just about dead even. In recent history we have played two sets, with Ty winning the first and myself winning the second and most recent. We both wanted the #5 spot but we both said we wouldn't be mad or anything if we got #6. Ultimately the decision was up to Firefly as Shoyo could not be gotten a hold of, and he opted to place myself above Ty as I had won the most recent set. Another fest is happening soon though which Ty will attend, so hopefully we can get a solid tiebreaker then!
TerenceLau was a very solid fourth place. We agreed that he is a solid notch above Ty and myself, but a solid notch below Firefly and Shoyo. A very smart and very technical Falco, Terence has very much earned his fourth place spot.
From here we had the classic Shoyo vs. Firefly dispute. Firefly had a small winning streak against Shoyo up until Felixfest 1, where he lost two sets against him. Yet, when the tournament was over, he managed to take a win in a money match against Luigi Ka-Master, the previous best in Washington and undisputed best in Hawaii. Personally, this put me in a bit of a bind: if we are to use direct sets between players to decide their ranks, then Firefly should be below Shoyo since he lost twice in a row. But by that same logic, Firefly should be number one because he beat Ka-Master in the only set they played in recent history.
It was a very hard choice for me, but ultimately I decided that Firefly should be second and Shoyo should be third, since Firefly has won the most sets overall in the past six months. Even though Shoyo won the two latest sets, Firefly also beat Ka-Master which is HUGELY significant. Ty was iffy on the tie (no pun intended), but after some discussion he agreed that Firefly deserved to be higher. Thus, Firefly finally rose to second place.
And, as for the number one spot, it was no contest among us. Ka-Master, while only attending one tournament in the past six months, decimated everyone at Felixfest. The only time he ever had to think about a counterpick was in his money match against Firefly. Even though he won, Firefly still agreed Ka-Master was the best. He's on a completely different level than us: he plows through brackets like he doesn't even care, he makes Luigi seem God tier, he does combos that no one even thought were possible, and all the while does it with a friendly smile on his face as he compliments you on your gameplay. Definitely the best, both in Melee and in being nice!
I can say with confidence now that Hawaii Melee is once again in full force and the most active Smash game in Hawaii, above Brawl, 64 and Project M. Do not be fooled by the fact that we live on an island: some of us, such as Ka-Master, have to travel humongous distances to attend fests. Those living on the Big Island and Maui typically have to fly out to attend fests in Oahu. But, despite our janky schedules and scattered proximity, the unlimited enthusiasm and commitment of the players will always keep our scene alive. Long Live Melee.
Honorable mentions include:
Nick Carter AKA Racer X, who was initially considered for this PR but rendered ineligible due to the new 6 months requirement. Nick is another old school player but unfortunately has not been able to come out since the Paghettofests of early 2013. He has expressed interest in coming out again though, and hopefully we will see him reclaim his spot on the PR once again!
Joel Pang AKA Soranaka. Joel was born and raised in Hawaii but moved to Japan for a job opportunity. He is back in Hawaii until April but is also ineligible for consideration on the PR due to having not lived here for four months. He is an incredibly good Peach player, able to go back and forth with Shoyo and Firefly, and would most likely take Terence's fourth place spot if he were to be on the PR. Joel, wherever he is, will always be a part of the Hawaii Melee scene in spirit!
DH Nolan is a Marth main from Mililani who was largely inactive until attending the fests hosted in his very own town! Nolan would most definitely be on the PR if he had attended a tournament, but he has only shown up to play friendlies. He took the famous "last match of 2013" with an incredibly clutch win, being down to one stock at mid percent against Shoyo's healthy two stocks after both their teams partners were knocked out. Despite this huge disadvantage, Nolan managed to take the victory with two very solidly executed gimps. The match can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjJ91b9tkT8
Other players I'd like to mention are Matt Garcia, Matt "Skuh" Smith, Void, Elk, and Nico Cruz, all new players who I am hoping are here to stay! Further shout-outs to Jeremy Ortiz, Hector "Moose" Guttierez, Kellen "Table" Ho, and Trevor Loo, all of whom are either OOS players or players from here whom we only met before they had to leave for the mainland for school. You are all with us here in spirit!
- BaconBDC
For our videos, go to youtube.com/user/theREALhawaii. For our Facebook group, go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/496185063726825/
UPDATE 2/25/14: Fernandeezy and Sheik'a'Link have played their set, with Fernandeezy coming out on top. Congratulations to Fernandeezy for the #10 spot!
1. Luigi Ka-Master
2. Firefly
3. Shoyo
4. TerenceLau
5. BaconBDC
6. Ty
7. LethalTrilogy
8. mellowD
9. Dren
10. Fernandeezy
(Writeup as of 2/7/2014)
After many stalls, I am happy to say that Hawaii now has an up-to-date, accurate Power Rankings. There are some close spots that may be open to scrutiny by some, so we decided that I would write a few paragraphs describing the process that went into creating it.
Firstly, I feel as if it's important to detail how the Hawaii SSBM scene came to its current state. Melee in Hawaii suffered a huge decline in the years after Brawl came out. In 2010, our weekly YMCA fests ran out of funding, and all fests and tournaments were hosted out of people's homes or at motels. The last big fest seemed to be Maui Winter Melee, during December 2010 and January 2011, which SilentSpectre attended. After that, there was somewhat of a dry spell. Somewhat successful fests were hosted at the Pagoda Hotel throughout 2011. 2012 had such few and uneventful fests that I honestly cannot remember enough about them to write about them.
In early 2013, two fests/tournaments were again held at the Pagoda Hotel, in March and April. These two were hosted by Ty and Sage visiting from Big Island/California. However, at both fests we were kicked out by security, which earned the fests the names "Paghettofest 1 and 2." Paghettofest 2 was a definite high point for the community, as we were kicked out while the tournament was still in process. Determined to finish, though, the three or four drivers shuttled everyone to Zurkei's house in Kapolei where we wrapped it up, having to remain completely silent so as to not wake his parents up.
After that though, the scene was once again on a hiatus. It wasn't until November, when I decided to host a fest in my hometown suburb of Mililani, that the scene seemed to jump to life again. This fest, dubbed Mililanifest 3 (I had hosted two fests in previous years), was something of a miracle. The primary reason for the event was to have a fest for Smasher Jeremy Ortiz, who was visiting from Connecticut. It didn't seem like it was going to be a particularly big fest--at first it was just myself, Firefly, LaserLimited, and Jeremy. But then, it seemed like all the stars lined up perfectly: Saiki happened to be visiting from Vegas and would be attending. So would Ty, who was flying in from Big Island. Additionally, several new players seemed interested in attending. This led to sort of a domino effect where more and more people wanted to attend, and on the day it seemed like the entire Hawaii community at the time was in my tiny town house. Since too many people arrived later than sooner, we didn't opt for a tournament, but we did have a draft crew battle which was nothing short of epic. Unfortunately, it was my first time streaming, and nobody told me Twitch would delete my videos after a certain amount of time!
After that, I hosted three more Mililanifests, all of which had tournaments as well. The return of tournaments was a huge factor leading to the desire to create a new Power Rankings. I proposed the idea in early December, which seemed to stir up a lot of discussion. We ended up doing this long, drawn-out process to decide who would be on the panel, which was so boring and tedious that I will not bore the reader by describing it here. To cut to the chase, the panel ended up being myself, Firefly, Ty and Shoyo.
Once we had the panel, however, we found it really difficult to get a discussion going between the four of us at the same time. We made plans to talk IRL which kept falling through. But in the mean time we were having the Mililanifest tournaments which were ultimately giving us more data to work with. Discussion was stalled all the way until late January, when Felix Zampaga AKA "Android" hosted a fest in his garage in the city of Kapolei. This fest was our most successful in a while, with the tournament having the biggest turnout in perhaps a year, and with attendees Luigi Ka-Master and Soranaka, two faces whom we hadn't seen in quite a while.
After that, we decided it was time to buckle down and pump these rankings out. We decided to all make our personal top ten and then to compare and contrast. The requirements for being considered was that the player had to have entered a singles tournament in the past six months and he had to have been living in the state for at least four months. This is what we came up with:
1. Luigi Ka-Master
2. Firefly/Shoyo
4. TerenceLau
5. BaconBDC/Ty
7. LethalTrilogy/mellowD
9. Dren
10. Fernandeezy/Sheik'a'Link
The ties were the close points where we needed a lot of discussion on.
Firstly, Fernandeezy vs. Sheik'a'Link. The two had never played a tournament or money match against each other and both had pretty even results against others. Sheik'a'Link is a new player, having moved here all the way from the island of Pohnpei. He has shown a rapid learning rate and managed to tie for fifth at one of the Mililanifests. Fernandeezy has been playing for longer though, and has gotten similar results in recent history. Because of the lack of set between the two we opted to actually have them tied on the rankings and to later break the tie with an official set. Stay tuned for that!
Dren, a former top Brawl player, has now converted to Melee! He is a very solid Doctor Mario and has beaten such names as: mellowD, Fernandeezy, and Felix, and he has taken a tournament set against myself as well. Because of all this we decided that ninth was a very justifiable place for him.
mellowD, who rocks the yellow Mario, is an old school player, being active since the very early days. LethalTrilogy, on the other hand, is another converted Brawl player, playing a very nasty Falco. LT has undoubtedly performed better in recent tournaments than mellowD, who lost to Dren and Void in the latest one. LT managed to place seventh, while mellowD placed thirteenth. Although Ty initially disagreed, the panel eventually decided to place LT above.
Myself versus Ty was perhaps the most difficult to resolve. I am of the opinion that we are just about dead even. In recent history we have played two sets, with Ty winning the first and myself winning the second and most recent. We both wanted the #5 spot but we both said we wouldn't be mad or anything if we got #6. Ultimately the decision was up to Firefly as Shoyo could not be gotten a hold of, and he opted to place myself above Ty as I had won the most recent set. Another fest is happening soon though which Ty will attend, so hopefully we can get a solid tiebreaker then!
TerenceLau was a very solid fourth place. We agreed that he is a solid notch above Ty and myself, but a solid notch below Firefly and Shoyo. A very smart and very technical Falco, Terence has very much earned his fourth place spot.
From here we had the classic Shoyo vs. Firefly dispute. Firefly had a small winning streak against Shoyo up until Felixfest 1, where he lost two sets against him. Yet, when the tournament was over, he managed to take a win in a money match against Luigi Ka-Master, the previous best in Washington and undisputed best in Hawaii. Personally, this put me in a bit of a bind: if we are to use direct sets between players to decide their ranks, then Firefly should be below Shoyo since he lost twice in a row. But by that same logic, Firefly should be number one because he beat Ka-Master in the only set they played in recent history.
It was a very hard choice for me, but ultimately I decided that Firefly should be second and Shoyo should be third, since Firefly has won the most sets overall in the past six months. Even though Shoyo won the two latest sets, Firefly also beat Ka-Master which is HUGELY significant. Ty was iffy on the tie (no pun intended), but after some discussion he agreed that Firefly deserved to be higher. Thus, Firefly finally rose to second place.
And, as for the number one spot, it was no contest among us. Ka-Master, while only attending one tournament in the past six months, decimated everyone at Felixfest. The only time he ever had to think about a counterpick was in his money match against Firefly. Even though he won, Firefly still agreed Ka-Master was the best. He's on a completely different level than us: he plows through brackets like he doesn't even care, he makes Luigi seem God tier, he does combos that no one even thought were possible, and all the while does it with a friendly smile on his face as he compliments you on your gameplay. Definitely the best, both in Melee and in being nice!
I can say with confidence now that Hawaii Melee is once again in full force and the most active Smash game in Hawaii, above Brawl, 64 and Project M. Do not be fooled by the fact that we live on an island: some of us, such as Ka-Master, have to travel humongous distances to attend fests. Those living on the Big Island and Maui typically have to fly out to attend fests in Oahu. But, despite our janky schedules and scattered proximity, the unlimited enthusiasm and commitment of the players will always keep our scene alive. Long Live Melee.
Honorable mentions include:
Nick Carter AKA Racer X, who was initially considered for this PR but rendered ineligible due to the new 6 months requirement. Nick is another old school player but unfortunately has not been able to come out since the Paghettofests of early 2013. He has expressed interest in coming out again though, and hopefully we will see him reclaim his spot on the PR once again!
Joel Pang AKA Soranaka. Joel was born and raised in Hawaii but moved to Japan for a job opportunity. He is back in Hawaii until April but is also ineligible for consideration on the PR due to having not lived here for four months. He is an incredibly good Peach player, able to go back and forth with Shoyo and Firefly, and would most likely take Terence's fourth place spot if he were to be on the PR. Joel, wherever he is, will always be a part of the Hawaii Melee scene in spirit!
DH Nolan is a Marth main from Mililani who was largely inactive until attending the fests hosted in his very own town! Nolan would most definitely be on the PR if he had attended a tournament, but he has only shown up to play friendlies. He took the famous "last match of 2013" with an incredibly clutch win, being down to one stock at mid percent against Shoyo's healthy two stocks after both their teams partners were knocked out. Despite this huge disadvantage, Nolan managed to take the victory with two very solidly executed gimps. The match can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjJ91b9tkT8
Other players I'd like to mention are Matt Garcia, Matt "Skuh" Smith, Void, Elk, and Nico Cruz, all new players who I am hoping are here to stay! Further shout-outs to Jeremy Ortiz, Hector "Moose" Guttierez, Kellen "Table" Ho, and Trevor Loo, all of whom are either OOS players or players from here whom we only met before they had to leave for the mainland for school. You are all with us here in spirit!
- BaconBDC
For our videos, go to youtube.com/user/theREALhawaii. For our Facebook group, go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/496185063726825/
UPDATE 2/25/14: Fernandeezy and Sheik'a'Link have played their set, with Fernandeezy coming out on top. Congratulations to Fernandeezy for the #10 spot!
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