It goes back as ancient as the cosmos. Before the dawn of Ken. The best players that I had heard about in canada were Mike and Jarrod. They attended some of the EARLIEST national scale smash tournaments in North America, doing quite well. I think one time Mike even beat Ken but I'm not 100% sure about that. I didn't really like melee before this time. I thought everything falled too fast and too quickly. I forced myself to like it by playing more and more. Of course, I always had Eric to play with and our interest in the game grew as our skill did.
This is back when I didn't have a SWF account. I had an account on "gameFAQs". "The kirby cheat", "how to unlock sonic", "Sheik is broken", "Marth is broken". All these phrases were heard time and time again and for some time, Sheik was on top of the tier list. Then one day I heard about this guy named "gamepro88" I was looking for people to play to test my ability against. I mained sheik at the time and thought I was pretty good. Eric mained falcon at the time. This is back in 2003. So, I got a hold of gamepro and invited him over. I could beat his peach (which held the WR for Peach BtT at this time) but not his sheik. He was grabbing me repeatedly and I could not escape. 'WHAT IS THIS!?' I cried. He was 2 and 3 stocking my sheik by chain grabbing me every stock and I didn't know ANYTHING of this so called "DI".
I talked with gamepro and he said he had recently gone to Edmonton to play the LEGENDARY "Punch Crew". This was the earliest "smash crew" I had ever heard of and was composed of Nick, Aaron, Mike, and Jarrod. gamepro claims to have beaten everyone except Mike. "Mike is good" The first combo video I had every seen and oh MAN! I was impressed! Mike's DK looked so good!. Anyways, shortly after this, Eric and I hosted our FIRST tournament at my moms place in Richmond. I was a favorite to win and in the grand finals I had to face "Nintensity". I was using Fox at the time and to my dismay, this FALCO knew how to Short-hop Laser. "How do I get around this!?" I thought to myself. "It's so unfair". Nick ended up beating me 2-1 in the grand finals (only best of 3 at the time). There WERE videos up but they have been lost for years now.
2004
Troy, Weeg, Shu, Wilfred, Darius, Victa, Ryan (Not cow ear)
Now let me tell you about wilfred. Wilfred and I were the FIRST smashers in BC besides gamepro88 to travel OOS to a tournament. We went to Edmonton for a tournament and took 3rd in doubles and Wilfred got 3rd in singles. I got like 7th.
Victa was another peach main, like wilfred. Back in the day his "cheap" tactics caused him to win all of our tournaments, that is until SKYPAL came up for the first time. SKYPAL was a legendary crew from Washington, also near the dawn of the cosmos. They came with teching, they came with L-cancelling, and they came with mad skills. Kei could not be stopped, he was the first person we had ever seen to TRULY **** Victa. He used fox and was WALL TECHING PEACH's Downsmash!!! We were all in awe at this spectacle of broken'ness.
Darius was another of the original players, and his friend Jeremy as well. Darius was a marth player and in 2003 or so, he created the best DI thread of it's time on SWF. I'm sure if you dig around somewhere you'll still be able to find it. Jeremy was his friend, also used marth. He was never amazing but he could give us all some good matches.
Ryan.... oh my god... the ness. This was the best Ness I had ever seen! His spacing, mindgames, and timing were so good and since none of us knew advanced techniques or utilized them well enough he was able to beat all of us. I think him and victa had a crazy insane close set and it was really hyped.
The earliest "smash crew" I knew of in Vancouver was composed of a fox, doc, and luigi. I remember going over to "Shu's" house in Vancouver. We met darkdragon88(troy, the creator of the original BC thread) and his fox could infite. He was considered very technical at the time. I remember having some very close matches with that crew. They were at the same level as eric and myself at the time (but we were a bit better) =p. There was one teams match that was recorded of me and eric (double falcon) vs troys fox and shu's doc. Team attack was off, because we didn't know that you were supposed to play doubles with team attack on at the time, and me and eric ended the match with a double knee. It was ****ing ****.
At this time, the top players in BC looked a bit like this...
1) Victa - Peach
2) Ryan - Ness
3) Wilfred - peach
4) Nintensity - Falco
5) Adam - Sheik
6) Eric - Falcon
7) Troy - Fox
8) Weeg - Luigi
9) Shu - Doc
Gamepro88 is somewhere in there too but I honestly can't remember how many of had surpassed him if at all :/
2005
This was a huge turning point in the smash scene for BC, and a time when our best players were truly put to the test as they faced off against some of the titans of smash... this was a reality check for the most part, to make us realize how far behind the top level of play we truly were...
I remember meeting a man named "Patooty". I had started talking with him on MSN. He was interested in coming over to play some smash. We agreed on msn that we would do a $20 MM without even having seen eachother play before. At the time, I mained falco, and Tiep (Patooty) mained Samus. I won 4-1 or 4-2 in a best of 7. Tiep said he enjoyed playing and would really like to play again. A few times later he brought over his younger brother Cow Ear (Ryan). The first time Ryan came over, I don't think he said even one word, he was very quiet and shy. His fox was pretty good for a 12 year old kid I thought.
The 4 of us: Ryan, Tiep, Eric, and myself began playing at least twice a week. Ryan and tiep would usually come over on the weekends and the four of us would play together. We began to steadily improve and when MLG came up to Seattle in 2005, we decided we would go and test our skill on a national level.
Shortly before MLG, I decided to pick up ganon. Specifically for the reason of beating Sastopher. I was told by Mikemonkey that he was the best player in the north-west and he mained peach. I asked mike what a good counter for peach was and he said Ganon did well. This is when I decided I would train up my Ganondorf with the intention of beating Sastopher. Little did I know, this would not be an easy feat to preform.
MLG Seattle 2005:
This was big, this was HUGE. Our first tournament out of the country on American soil. We knew what we were going to be up against. We had seen videos of Ken, Azen, and Isai (the top 3 in North America at the time) but we had never played any of the pros before. Tiep drove down with Ryan and Eric and myself drove down with my mom and step dad. Before we even got to the venue, I was sweating... I was so nervous. This was mine (and WC canada's) first time to represent our region out of state, and some of the best players in north america, even the world, were going to be in attendance. Wr drove into the heart of down town Seattle. The streets were busy and kind of dirty. We walked into the lobby of a fancy hotel, the decor was amazing, a very aesthetically pleasing venue to say the least. We walked through a big double door after paying our venue fee and before us were at least 2,000 sq feet of carpet with rows and rows of TV's. I was amazed. NEVER had I seen such a thing. There was also a Halo tournament going on at the same time. The Halo TV's and players outnumbered the smash TV's and smashers about 3:1.
Right away we began warming up. I recognized some faces but I hadn't really seen what the smash pros looked like before. Then I saw the list of entrants....
Chu, Isai, Husband, Sastopher, Kei, Bob$, Zelgadis, Variety Barrage, ..Azen..."Azen"... my heart stopped, I knew very well that Azen was considered one of the top 3 players in all of North America. The idea of playing him and being in the same tournament as him made my tournament anxiety even worse. I was also excited at the same time. "Isai" Another one of the top 3. The best 64 player of all time and best melee falcon player in the world was also here. I actually had brought my 64 setup and had a $20 MM with Isai. We played about 50-100 matches of 64. Anyways, long story short, Tiep and Ryan got 8th in teams. I played Sastopher first round and he didn't even use peach against me. Eric placed the highest out of the 4 of us in singles (with doc) and doc ditto'd Bob $. Behind the well known players, canada placed fairly well. We were all fairly happy with how we had done.
...more to come soon.
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