I can't even say how much fun I had at the event. I just love all of the character diversity in Smash 4. I played against so many different characters. The only characters I stumbled across multiple times were Yoshi and Rob.
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1ampercent
: Thanks! Melee Doubles was free entry and we were waiting for Smash 4 to start, so we figured we'd jump in just for the fun of it. If I can land at least one rest with Jiggly Puff or one giant punch with DK then I'm happy. xD
Tree: Good matches man! Thankfully I have a friend I play with that uses the same custom counter as you so I was prepared for it. You got me once after standing up at ledge, but it lost out every other time because my jabs out-speed the activation of your counter.
The Rosalina matches were a lot tougher. I kept guessing wrong when I thought you were dash-grabbing or dash-attacking. I eventually adapted and started tilting you out of all your dashes. We'll have to play again sometime!
Viva: Really awesome matches man. You really helped to show me that I rely on shield waaaay too much. Against grounded approaches I really need to spot dodge more or protect myself with my own attacks. I don't want to count the number of times you dash-grabbed me and put me into a juggle. I'll definitely have to work on that.
As for switching from Little Mac I definitely did so because I do detest falling to my doom at lower than 100%. If it happens too many times I'll get discouraged and play someone else. I figured by playing someone like DK I could stay in till about 130% or higher which did turn out to be the case. But even then I really struggled to get a KO. Your spacing and positioning that mixes empty jumps and occasional back airs isn't a playstyle I'm accustomed to. I'll try to adapt so I can give you a better match next time.
Oh and btw you had amazing DI when it came to my jabs. I was always scared to commit to multi-hit jabs because of how great your DI was. It is character-weight dependent, but still no one handled it that well.
Jeii: Was really cool being able to play you as well. Yoshis give me a lot of trouble so it's definitely one of the match-ups I have a lot of experience with. From watching replays we tend to stay pretty similar in percent for the bulk of our rounds. But the match really changes when we both reach high percent. You usually either just miss your side smash or I'll absorb the hit with the super armor on my own side smash.
You showed me though that I really need to give up on trying to use the KO Punch after standing up at ledge. The KO Punch is really fast to activate, but a good player will always beat it out with either a multi-hit move as I'm coming up from ledge or a well-timed attack with good active frames. I took way too much damage trying to commit to that one option.
Dom: Those raptor boosts man. They aren't a good approach. So many free blocks into punishes. I'm guessing that move works differently in Project M? I'm sure it can be difficult switching between games. That's the main reason I'm not playing PM myself. I like the game, but I feel it throws me off of Smash 4.
Those sweet-spotted knees though. Your positioning is perfect, but you do it so frequently it's predictable. I got that solid KO on the first stock by trading the hit with super armor. Again it doesn't matter how much damage you do, super armor means I don't flinch no matter how powerful the attack is. Grabs is how you beat super armor.
Oh and that sweet-spotted knee in the air. Again you went for it a lot so it was a pretty free counter. I didn't expect it to send you all the way from the right side of the stage to the left blast zone at 77%. But I guess I don't really know the power of Captain falcon's knee.
Attila:
This perfectly captures how every one of our rounds went. xD
Seriously though you're not DIing my multi-hit jabs properly. You always seem to DI inwards, but that's not the way to do it. I told you during our matches that it's character(weight) dependent and that you either DI up and away or down and away, but you always DI'd towards me. This allowed to get off a jab combo that did 29%. With proper DI I shouldn't be getting more than 11~14%. There would be a few moments where it
looked like you were just about to make it out of my jabs, BUT Little Mac starts to push himself backwards after a couple seconds of jabbing so instead you would just get stuck in that position.
Also when I start my jabs I need to be close to you or my multi-hit jabs will drop my opponent and leave me in a vulnerable state. But because you always DI'd inwards I was able to connect multi-hit jab combos from max-distance which doesn't really work with proper DI.
I like to slightly charge smash attacks a lot. If I get the hit then that's free extra damage, but if I hit your shield instead then you get a tad more block stun and are pushed slightly away. My jabs start up crazy fast so I was almost always able to get them up before you could do anything out of a dash.
What I'm doing
looks punishable, but it isn't. If I wanted I could go into shield or dodge roll away before you could reach me with anything, but I kept going for jabs because of how you were choosing to approach and your preference for DIing towards me.
I think our matches will be a lot better on the Wii U when we have actual controllers. I'm looking forward to it!
Dean: Really awesome matches man! Your spacing and positioning are too good. I quickly noticed that my Little Mac had no real way to approach Dedede. You could literally just sit there and I was pretty much in check. That forward tilt out ranges my dash attack, my forward tilt, and my forward smash. Super armor doesn't help if I can't reach you.
The only option I really had was Jolt Haymaker and that's never a good approach. The risk is significantly higher than the reward. It's pretty easy to shield on reaction from that distance.
I tried using DK as well, but yeah my hit boxes extend my hurt boxes unlike your hammer. It wasn't as bad since I can now approach from the air on your laggier moves, but yeah you still had the superior range and dictated the flow of the match. I don't pretend to be the best DK player so I'm sure there might of been a better strategy to use, but I definitely couldn't figure it out at that point.
Still though it was crazy how we would space back and forth via walking and trade at the exact same time from perfect distance with tilts. I lost those trades, but yeah I appreciated the great timing and positioning, I don't see that from many other players and especially not that often. And on the 3DS! So Impressed.
V: Congratulations on winning BOTH custom and no-custom tournaments! I told you that you'd be able to do it! Really glad you were able to keep your nerves in check despite playing against such amazing players!
Our matches went how they usually go so I wasn't really surprised losing to you, but none the less it was a really cool feeling facing off against you in Winners Finals the first tournament and Losers Finals in the next. To me it made our matches feel like these "grand clashes" instead of our usual messing around at EB Games.
I'm glad I was able to take your first stock before you took mine in one of our matches. I feel like I'm getting a lot better at the Little Mac vs Ness match up. Heck back when we first starting playing this match-up you would 2-stock me pretty effortlessly. So I'm glad that I'm getting better. I still feel the match-up is pretty terrible for Little Mac though. Really need to find a character to play as when I can't safely approach on the ground. Which is kinda Little Mac's only way to approach. xD
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To everyone else I played I'm sorry I didn't call you out. My replays got maxed out so I wasn't able to save all my matches and kept forgetting to clear out space until the 2nd tournament. The tournaments ran super smooth so big thanks to everyone who helped out with that.
Can't wait for Smash Wii U to come out so we can all finally play with real controllers again. Far too many people died yesterday due to the shoddy directional input detection from the 3DS's circle pad.