I'm back in Seattle now, so here's a tournament recap from my POV:
Tuesday/Wednesday:
Start feeling sick at work on Tuesday morning. Think "no, this can't be happening. Apexxxxxxxxxxxx" Go home at noon. Vomit for eight hours straight. Unable to keep fluids down for 18 hours. In intense abdominal pain. Decide at 4:00am (after being up since 6:30am, unable to sleep from delirium and pain) to go to ER and get treatment in the hope it will enable me to get my flight on Thursday morning. It works. Get home at 7:00am. Proceed to sleep 16 hours in two shifts before leaving for the airport at 6:30am on Thursday morning.
Thursday:
Still feeling weak and sore, but I'm definitely recovering. Get into EWR at 5:00ish. Get my car, check into hotel, eat, and track down the smashfest. Megavolt helps me parallel park because holy **** I suck at it. Embarrass myself by failing to recognize Nintendude because I'm awful with faces and names. Notice at smashfest that I'm RUSTY AS BALLS. Get convinced that I've lost my edge completely and that the tournament is going to suck for me.
Friday:
Wake up feeling good physically but ****ty about my potential for the day. Shower is broken in hotel room, but we get that resolved. Get to venue at 1:30pm and eat a 6" Subway sandwich for breakfast/lunch (this will be important later).
Tournament starts, I'm not playing well. I start straight out telling people "I suck now" haha. But between matches I do nothing but play endless games with Boom and Banze. By round three or four the rust starts to come off - I start trading games with Banze and getting Boom to 1-2 stocks. And I keep getting better and better as the day/night goes on.
Round 1: Bye.
Round 2: Don't remember sorry :<
Round 3: ShadeMoneh I think? Decent Fox.
Round 4: YBOMBB. Never played him before. Wasn't ready for a great Jiggles. Really good player, but thanks to my constant grinding with Boom and Banze I "woke up" partway through the match and eked out a narrow 2-1 victory. Start feeling good about the tournament! Also, this is where my matches start getting commentary.
Round 5: Kikoushi. He strikes Hyrule. I'm too scared to go to Congo, so i strike it and we go to Dreamland. Probably a mistake. Get annihilated game one. Game two we go to Hyrule. I can actually do things to him there, haha. Still lose of course, but not before getting a few stocks off him. Off to the losers!
Losers 1: Nintendude. Serious competition already in the losers? Man this tournament is dense with talent. Close games one and two, but I run away with it game three.
Losers 2: Sensei. STORY TIME
Get called up to the commentary setup out of the blue for this match. It's like 10:30 and I realize I haven't eaten anything at all that day except for the 6" sub at 1:30. Run downstairs to grab a quick snack. The only thing I can find that's quick enough for the situation is Subway cookies. I have to buy six to meet the credit card minimum purchase, so random people got free cookies!. By the time I get back another match is happening on the commentary TV. I think it was Jaime vs Nangoku. But Nintendude pushes Sensei and me to have our match on a non-commentary TV due to time concerns. So sadly you guys don't get commentary for this match. Blame Nintendude >:|.
But seriously don't sweat it because. Well. Man I hope you guys liked what we did at Apex 2012 because that's what happened here. Except Sensei wins a narrow victory on a 2-1 set this time around. Actually game two was on Dreamland and pretty awesome I think, with a hilarious ending. So watch that. Game three probably shouldn't be watched by human beings.
Tiebreaker for 7th: Nangoku.
Extremely impressed with this guy's Ness throughout the day. Annihilated by him earlier before I got my spark back, to the extent that I was damn surprised when I learned Jaime knocked him out of losers. Thought I was doomed. But he struck Congo, so we went Hyrule -> Dreamland -> Hyrule. He played Ness for all three games. Lots of craziness going on in the Hyrule games, but I got creamed on Dreamland lol (though I was able to take games from his Ness on Dreamland in later friendlies). I pull out a narrow victory and can hardly believe it. Sadly this match didn't get commentary because doubles was already well underway by the time it occurred. A shame, since I think I played better during it than at any other time at Apex. I hope you guys are willing to overlook this lack of commentary and watch the matches anyway! Nangoku's Ness also deserves to be seen of course. Maybe I can convince Battlecow to produce some post commentary for this match, cause it deserves it (and his post commentary for my old match with Isai was quite good).
Spend the rest of the night playing Banze I think. **** yeah. Have I mentioned how awesome playing Banze is? Awesome guy, great player (we traded games endlessly). He got knocked out too early because the loser's bracket ended up a bit lopsided. My endless games with him were one of the highlights of my Apex experience. He's super, super fun to play. I hope I get the chance to play him again some day.
Also get some games in with Valeom and Battlecow. Valeom kept getting better the more he played me, it kind of worried me haha.
Sunday
Play endless games with Ruoka. He mostly uses his totally baller DK and we trade a bunch of games. I don't think I ever got to face his top character(s?) though :<. Move to ****ing around on JP version SSB64 with Sheer and Nangoku for a long time. Start to feel shakey as the day goes on, but manage not to lose it until close to leaving. A nice change from 2012, where I was basically spiritually dead the entire day after the tournament.
Leave feeling awesome, manage to get to airport...eventually, after getting lost trying to find the car rental place for a half hour. Catch flight stressed out but otherwise fine.
Player shoutouts:
- Nintendude, for putting this together and giving so much of his time and energy into putting this thing together and making it happen. Super ultra awesome.
- Battlecow: Dude the commentary I could hear was awesome. Now I'm going to have to rewatch all the matches to actually hear it for real. We need to get that stuff up on speakers next time.
- Jel, for keeping me in the SSB64 world between major events, convincing me to go to these things, and accompanying me on these trips. Guy might have more love for this game than me at all times other than major Smash events.
- Megavolt: Helped a lot in getting Jel and I to the smashfest and venue. Holy **** dude get a wider driveway. Hopefully next time we have more of a chance to actually play each other.
- Sensei: We're gonna need a rematch rematch!
- Sheer: Finally got to prove that he's up there with me/Sensei/Jaime in real Smash. Yoshi's always such a weirdo to play against.
- Banze: See above. Also up there with me/Sensei/Jaime.
- Jaime: Pro Samus counterpick is just as effective in 2013. Always love playing against you, it's so chill yet pro level gameplay. Didn't get enough games with you this year because there were so many new faces to play.
- Nangoku and Ruoka: Playing the Japanese is so fun. It's a really high technical and mental level gameplay that somehow feels more "honest" than most western players, if that makes any sense. I think they've got the right idea with the Dreamland only thing. I really hope I get the chance to play Japan again some day.
- Kikoushi: Mentioned separately because he's on another level. By which I mean he's too damn good and I couldn't have the same kinds of games with him as I could Ruoka and Nangoku, haha. At first I was a little bummed that Isai lost to him, but seeing Kikoushi's reaction to victory...man, it couldn't have been any other way.
- Boom: Nothing like sitting in the center front row watching grand finals and alternatively discussing the games (move choices, tactics, etc) and screaming with him in the fashion only the two of us can pull off. And also all the great matches with him. I miss Boom living close enough to me get 2 frames of delay online :<
- Isai: Still the same old monster. Offered to train me for my Kikoushi match by using his Kirby. That didn't go well. And you just gotta see his reaction to the grand finals conclusion.
- I may have forgotten someone. I'll be sure to edit names in if I remember anything else.
All in all a super awesome amazing ultra tournament. I'm thinking this experience ranks up there with the best weekends in my life. Is there any way Apex 2014 can meet it or even top it? I sure hope so!