well why don't you guys do something about it then? start getting more competetive and put together more tourneys and events. Thats the only way to get better, you guys can't keep playing each other at smashfests and hope to get better that way, you need to expand your scope of players to you can really play diffrent styles and skill levles.
You are only as good as your competition, but seriously, if one person is waaay better then the rest of you thats shows that you guys dont really have many people to compete with. I've been thinking about this for awhile now, and I dunno I just wanted to expess my opinion about this so bear with me, lol.
Let's say Rina goes back up there and arranges more tourneys (I'll just use smash for example, SF4 and the rest might be diffrent becasue I know you guys dont really play those games). People who never really went to tourneys before, or people who want to start going, or people who never really became familiar with the"Smash Community" up there would start to go. At first yeah of course you guys would prolly take the top spots, but maybe someone you never knew before might have a few upset victories. Thats really good, someone to look at besides your friends for competiton. This might motivate you to look up their character or their particular style on smashboards or what not, learn stuff about them, then come back the next following tourney with a game plan in case you play them. That by itself if one way you guys can level up.
Even with your own friends and people you play with all the time you can level up. If there are more tourneys let's say you have a friend who uses a character you have a bad match up with. Generaly in friendlies or in smashfests you lose more then you win against them. Well in tourney you need the win, so you'll try everything in your power to learn the match up and try to turn the tides in your favor, you come in and beat the friend or you lose, which gets you wanting to train more, or when your opponent loses they will think "****, I thought I had the advantage, I usually win. . . .I better see what I can do next time I come across this situation." and he will start to train and try to level up.
Those are just instances the might happen if more tourneys happen up there. For me as a competetive player these are proven ways to improve the community and general skill level of a region (I'm a TO, so I see it happen more then others).
Of course living in SoCal is a huge advantage by itself, the best of the best here are usualy the highest level of competition in the country. And personaly I have it so good with who I play with, I play SF4 at AI and play with people like Ed Ma, Alex Valle ect. Playing blazblue at Denjin training with Bang Camaro and Mike. Z (Who im learning my tager from), Smashing with the best players on a regular basis (DSF, Tyrant, JonT, DEHF ect.) I mean it is a lot easier to get better down here, but don't let that make you think you can never reach the level of a region of something like SoCal.
We get good here by playing each other and trying to get better then the other guy. There is no "God Of Smash, or God of Gaming" down here, it's always a heated battle between players that gets our level as a region even higher, and i know you guys up ther are more then capable of that. The best players from SF4 here used to be 3s scrubs (cept. Valle) who looked up to top players and were convinced they were the Gods of SF. Well they took it upon themselfs to get better and improve themselfs when it came to SF4, they didnt let something so small as someone being a pro from the previous game get them down. Eventually the old pros couldnt even keep up with them, and now they show everyone that even how bad or scrubby you were back then, if you work at it you'll get there.
I dunno this is just an opinion from someone on the other side of the country, but u seem like cool guys who just enjoy playing the game. I just wanted to say some things, lol.
