Lord Chair
Smash Master
Recent discussion on our beloved Marth boards has led me to conclude the following:
Americans are extremely pretentious with regards to their understanding of the European metagame.
'But I regularly talk to Mr. R! *smirk*'.
'But I watch all videos!'.
'But I'm Pierce!'.
Frankly dear, I don't give a coarse pebble about those things.
What surprised me most was the assumption that I know nothing of my own metagame. For those who don't know me, I'm Chair. If you're European you probably know me, because I'm the guy who wanders around at every tournament in a bath robe, making horrible attempts to speak German. I'm the guy who always criticizes the Frenchies, the guy who's supposedly the most garbage Wario player in Europe.
I'm also the guy who's actually fairly nice, attends almost every tournament and tends to help everyone with everything ranging from booking train rides to helping your mother-in-law with making spaghetti carbonara.
I digress, as usual. The point I'm making here is that I know the European metagame, there's no need for you to deny it because it's a fact.
Yet obviously, random Americans know our metagame better. After all, they watch our videos and they're fairly perceptive. You guys even knew who Luigi Player was (the fact that you found out a tad late is in no way a bad thing, obviously you won't notice a player who consistently places first in his own country, top 3 in Germany and top 7 in Europe until he actually wins an international).
Perceptive enough to compensate for the fact that you don't know a crass detail about what actually goes on in our wonderful continent.
Now, the original subject on the aforementioned Marth boards was about the aggressive playstyle Europeans, relatively compared to Japan and the US, are known to have. A point of discussion was what the actual meaning of 'aggro' was. Silly American Marths (henceforth: Sam) tend to see it as an analogy to 'jump into the ****'.
Sam misses a big point. I would've hoped I didn't have to explain why, but I see no reason to assume Sam is any different from the average American. The big point is: A≠B. Aggro is not suicide, suicide is not aggro.
For too long a time the US have considered camping to be the superior strategy. Sam loyally followed this consensus, Sam would be a bit of an einzelgänger if he were to disagree, regardless of what his character was capable of.
Every time a Marvelous European Marth (Mem) did something marvelous, it would first be regarded stupid and flashy and consequently become part of the American metagame, only first it'd be given some weird American name (I like how predicting airdodges and punishing them is called a Neo).
Nay, this shan't be a whine about how Europe is underrated, we all know the truth about that. It is only to explain how the European aggro has developed itself over the years, don't worry.
Europe has been developing non-stop, starting out as an incoherent community. Not before long, the separate sub-communities discovered each other. The different playstyles were, well, different. Marth, mostly because of a lack of Meta Knights and Dededes, was a very dominant factor from the start. The most dominant countries, the Netherlands and France, had a top Marth. These Marth players dominated their own countries with an aggressive playstyle, inspiring the rest of the continent to follow suit.
The metagame didn't really start to develop that well until Europe started understanding itself. Starting with TSL4, we got to understand what players were to be a factor in the following years, and how to play the game from then on. People still recall the infamous Mr. R vs. Kaos finals, which started Ramin's ******** fanbase and general US<>EU whining. Ramin used his gimmicks because they worked, Sam cried they didn't, Ramin kept using them until they no longer worked and he moved on.
2 years later Sam still whined.
Even though Spain did rather well at TSL, they have always been a bit of the underdog because of lacking intenational attendance. This does not mean they suck. Spain has always had strong players like Greward, Marcbri and Rydle, but travelling expenses from and to Spain have been a limiting factor. Obviously, Americans aren't aware of the existence of the country because hell, they don't see videos.
MK starting coming up as Europe decided to gay up and play to win more. Kaos was a consistent player throughout his career, Staco was consistent as well and more Meta Knights started to show up, some bad, some surprisingly good. Older players like Jumpman (NL) and newer ones like Bjay, Neath (both FR), Rydle (SP) and Chiiii (Norwegian, lacking attendance) started to make Europe understand how strong Meta Knight is.
Yet Europe didn't care as much. Even though the influx of new MK players was rather big, it never got anywhere close to the amount of MKs. Not only that, Europe played the characters capable of beating the character. Characters with a strong ground game. Our top players never played Wolf, DDD or ROB. Not only that, our Marth players understood that the MU was doable.
Was our metagame lacking? Not necessarily, you could say that any relative amount of MKs lower than 40% means a metagame is lacking, but that's ignorant and false.
Glutonny didn't change a whole lot, and I actually didn't want to mention him at all. Then again, the kid has been the continent's pride ever since he 3-stocked Leon in pools at his very first tournament. No, he doesn't play the game efficiently, but he doesn't care. He never really developed our metagame, he was that Wario who did stupid stuff and stupid people jumped into the stupid stuff. You could say that means he wasn't that good (after all, he was only exploiting his opponents' mistakes), but doing so would mean you aren't giving him the chance to show what he was worth.
Not that he cared about recognition either.
After a certain while, the European community as a whole decided to become more cohesive. Dutchies travelled to France, Frenchies travelled to the Netherlands, Germany and the Netherlands started hanging out and the German countries developed a really cool community.
The only real contact between the countries was (and has been!) over web messenger programs, and on the European regional boards on SWF. It was all we needed, most countries have their national community sites, but obviously there's little to no reason for a British chap to visit the French forums if he can't understand the language. At the moment, if a tournament of decent size is announced, everyone in Europe is capable of knowing about it so long as they regularly check the chatroom or the one SWF board we actually use. We're easy like that.
Now what does this have to do with European playstyle? I haven't mentioned it too much, an explanation is difficult to give. You aren't consciously adopting a playstyle, and you can't consciously change it. The European Marth metagame can be explained though (yes I'll stick to Marth for now), but it's entirely subjective and the reader is free to counter it with whatever opinion they have, don't expect me to discuss it too much though:
The issue with the campy metagame is that it revolves entirely around a bunch of characters potentially facing MK. It's true, MK is fairly difficult to pressure and approach. Camping is a strong and relatively safe zoning tool, and tends to be the preferred option when facing a superior opponent. In Marth's specific situation, you're doing one thing wrong: when camping, you are committing to making tons of choices with a little reward that is slight zoning, yet you give MK all the information he needs to counter Marth's defensive game with. Marth has to force MK to make decisions, because if he doesn't he'll just be disadvantegeous in terms of conditioning and general reading. At lower levels of play, this doesn't matter all that much since conditioning and adapting isn't as much part of the game, making camping a much more preferable tactic. However, people fail to comprehend that at top level play, you can't let this happen with just slight zoning as a justification.
That's the short and stout version. Other aspects of the MU (like Marth chasing MK off-stage) are less of a playstyle thing and more of a practical thing. I can't understand why I still have to explain to people that MK is at a disadvantage when he's the one being forced offstage. Even if he manages to counter the chase, at best he'll do 10% damage and create a ledgeguarding situation (in his disadvantage). Conservative play (sticking to 'safer' edgeguarding, allowing MK to get back to the ledge and being satisfied with just standard ledge guarding) only provides unnecessary safety, trading a slight risk accompanied with a potential high reward for a mediocre, unrewarding (but safe) situation.
Considering I'm not a Marth player, I'll just leave that theory be. It's not a theory just randomly made up by me, it's according to the general European consensus and the mentioned casus (MK-Marth) can be replaced with a certain few other matchups. Of course we do understand that it starts to work out differently when you're playing Marth-Diddy, or any Falco matchup. Just because Leon played Glutonny's Falco badly and ended up being uploaded on Youtube doesn't mean that we all rush Falco. Thinking we do is flat-out stupid. It's no longer relevant whether Leon had johns or not, it's simply ******** to take those GF as seriously as people are taking them (especially considering the average skill level at the tournament was mediocre, it was just a small French regional).
Another thing I'd like to note is the way Americans treat Europe when they're not whining about it. Crass amounts of fanboyism are... whatever. Sometimes things are just weird. Let's just take the VvV Rapture + Will commentary videos, what's the idea behind those? It's cool that they commentate matches in HD, and it's also cool that they somehow decided to do European matches. But then, why Izaw vs Haze? Why Izaw vs King Funk? Sure, they're going to do Leon vs Mr. R next, but what's up with the first two? Izaw having a brainfarting fanbase may have had something to do with that, but it doesn't really do the image of Europe all that good (neither was the commentary really convincing, but I'll just leave it at this).
Also, what's up with the demands Americans make when they want to go to Europe? What's up with Mew2king asking for strings of tournaments Brawl+Melee to be organized in his honor? Yes, M2k tends to do silly things like that, but I can't say any of us really felt honored to be able to drag our butts through all sorts of organizing just to have M2k attend one of our tournaments.
I won't note that Europeans travel to the US all the time, yet we rarely get any American to visit our tournaments. After all, I can't blame people for not willing to spend that much money on Smash, but it's something worth noting.
My motivation for this is gone now, can't get myself to effectively troll at the moment so I'll just leave it with this.
Americans are extremely pretentious with regards to their understanding of the European metagame.
'But I regularly talk to Mr. R! *smirk*'.
'But I watch all videos!'.
'But I'm Pierce!'.
Frankly dear, I don't give a coarse pebble about those things.
What surprised me most was the assumption that I know nothing of my own metagame. For those who don't know me, I'm Chair. If you're European you probably know me, because I'm the guy who wanders around at every tournament in a bath robe, making horrible attempts to speak German. I'm the guy who always criticizes the Frenchies, the guy who's supposedly the most garbage Wario player in Europe.
I'm also the guy who's actually fairly nice, attends almost every tournament and tends to help everyone with everything ranging from booking train rides to helping your mother-in-law with making spaghetti carbonara.
I digress, as usual. The point I'm making here is that I know the European metagame, there's no need for you to deny it because it's a fact.
Yet obviously, random Americans know our metagame better. After all, they watch our videos and they're fairly perceptive. You guys even knew who Luigi Player was (the fact that you found out a tad late is in no way a bad thing, obviously you won't notice a player who consistently places first in his own country, top 3 in Germany and top 7 in Europe until he actually wins an international).
Perceptive enough to compensate for the fact that you don't know a crass detail about what actually goes on in our wonderful continent.
Now, the original subject on the aforementioned Marth boards was about the aggressive playstyle Europeans, relatively compared to Japan and the US, are known to have. A point of discussion was what the actual meaning of 'aggro' was. Silly American Marths (henceforth: Sam) tend to see it as an analogy to 'jump into the ****'.
Sam misses a big point. I would've hoped I didn't have to explain why, but I see no reason to assume Sam is any different from the average American. The big point is: A≠B. Aggro is not suicide, suicide is not aggro.
For too long a time the US have considered camping to be the superior strategy. Sam loyally followed this consensus, Sam would be a bit of an einzelgänger if he were to disagree, regardless of what his character was capable of.
Every time a Marvelous European Marth (Mem) did something marvelous, it would first be regarded stupid and flashy and consequently become part of the American metagame, only first it'd be given some weird American name (I like how predicting airdodges and punishing them is called a Neo).
Nay, this shan't be a whine about how Europe is underrated, we all know the truth about that. It is only to explain how the European aggro has developed itself over the years, don't worry.
Europe has been developing non-stop, starting out as an incoherent community. Not before long, the separate sub-communities discovered each other. The different playstyles were, well, different. Marth, mostly because of a lack of Meta Knights and Dededes, was a very dominant factor from the start. The most dominant countries, the Netherlands and France, had a top Marth. These Marth players dominated their own countries with an aggressive playstyle, inspiring the rest of the continent to follow suit.
The metagame didn't really start to develop that well until Europe started understanding itself. Starting with TSL4, we got to understand what players were to be a factor in the following years, and how to play the game from then on. People still recall the infamous Mr. R vs. Kaos finals, which started Ramin's ******** fanbase and general US<>EU whining. Ramin used his gimmicks because they worked, Sam cried they didn't, Ramin kept using them until they no longer worked and he moved on.
2 years later Sam still whined.
Even though Spain did rather well at TSL, they have always been a bit of the underdog because of lacking intenational attendance. This does not mean they suck. Spain has always had strong players like Greward, Marcbri and Rydle, but travelling expenses from and to Spain have been a limiting factor. Obviously, Americans aren't aware of the existence of the country because hell, they don't see videos.
MK starting coming up as Europe decided to gay up and play to win more. Kaos was a consistent player throughout his career, Staco was consistent as well and more Meta Knights started to show up, some bad, some surprisingly good. Older players like Jumpman (NL) and newer ones like Bjay, Neath (both FR), Rydle (SP) and Chiiii (Norwegian, lacking attendance) started to make Europe understand how strong Meta Knight is.
Yet Europe didn't care as much. Even though the influx of new MK players was rather big, it never got anywhere close to the amount of MKs. Not only that, Europe played the characters capable of beating the character. Characters with a strong ground game. Our top players never played Wolf, DDD or ROB. Not only that, our Marth players understood that the MU was doable.
Was our metagame lacking? Not necessarily, you could say that any relative amount of MKs lower than 40% means a metagame is lacking, but that's ignorant and false.
Glutonny didn't change a whole lot, and I actually didn't want to mention him at all. Then again, the kid has been the continent's pride ever since he 3-stocked Leon in pools at his very first tournament. No, he doesn't play the game efficiently, but he doesn't care. He never really developed our metagame, he was that Wario who did stupid stuff and stupid people jumped into the stupid stuff. You could say that means he wasn't that good (after all, he was only exploiting his opponents' mistakes), but doing so would mean you aren't giving him the chance to show what he was worth.
Not that he cared about recognition either.
After a certain while, the European community as a whole decided to become more cohesive. Dutchies travelled to France, Frenchies travelled to the Netherlands, Germany and the Netherlands started hanging out and the German countries developed a really cool community.
The only real contact between the countries was (and has been!) over web messenger programs, and on the European regional boards on SWF. It was all we needed, most countries have their national community sites, but obviously there's little to no reason for a British chap to visit the French forums if he can't understand the language. At the moment, if a tournament of decent size is announced, everyone in Europe is capable of knowing about it so long as they regularly check the chatroom or the one SWF board we actually use. We're easy like that.
Now what does this have to do with European playstyle? I haven't mentioned it too much, an explanation is difficult to give. You aren't consciously adopting a playstyle, and you can't consciously change it. The European Marth metagame can be explained though (yes I'll stick to Marth for now), but it's entirely subjective and the reader is free to counter it with whatever opinion they have, don't expect me to discuss it too much though:
The issue with the campy metagame is that it revolves entirely around a bunch of characters potentially facing MK. It's true, MK is fairly difficult to pressure and approach. Camping is a strong and relatively safe zoning tool, and tends to be the preferred option when facing a superior opponent. In Marth's specific situation, you're doing one thing wrong: when camping, you are committing to making tons of choices with a little reward that is slight zoning, yet you give MK all the information he needs to counter Marth's defensive game with. Marth has to force MK to make decisions, because if he doesn't he'll just be disadvantegeous in terms of conditioning and general reading. At lower levels of play, this doesn't matter all that much since conditioning and adapting isn't as much part of the game, making camping a much more preferable tactic. However, people fail to comprehend that at top level play, you can't let this happen with just slight zoning as a justification.
That's the short and stout version. Other aspects of the MU (like Marth chasing MK off-stage) are less of a playstyle thing and more of a practical thing. I can't understand why I still have to explain to people that MK is at a disadvantage when he's the one being forced offstage. Even if he manages to counter the chase, at best he'll do 10% damage and create a ledgeguarding situation (in his disadvantage). Conservative play (sticking to 'safer' edgeguarding, allowing MK to get back to the ledge and being satisfied with just standard ledge guarding) only provides unnecessary safety, trading a slight risk accompanied with a potential high reward for a mediocre, unrewarding (but safe) situation.
Considering I'm not a Marth player, I'll just leave that theory be. It's not a theory just randomly made up by me, it's according to the general European consensus and the mentioned casus (MK-Marth) can be replaced with a certain few other matchups. Of course we do understand that it starts to work out differently when you're playing Marth-Diddy, or any Falco matchup. Just because Leon played Glutonny's Falco badly and ended up being uploaded on Youtube doesn't mean that we all rush Falco. Thinking we do is flat-out stupid. It's no longer relevant whether Leon had johns or not, it's simply ******** to take those GF as seriously as people are taking them (especially considering the average skill level at the tournament was mediocre, it was just a small French regional).
Another thing I'd like to note is the way Americans treat Europe when they're not whining about it. Crass amounts of fanboyism are... whatever. Sometimes things are just weird. Let's just take the VvV Rapture + Will commentary videos, what's the idea behind those? It's cool that they commentate matches in HD, and it's also cool that they somehow decided to do European matches. But then, why Izaw vs Haze? Why Izaw vs King Funk? Sure, they're going to do Leon vs Mr. R next, but what's up with the first two? Izaw having a brainfarting fanbase may have had something to do with that, but it doesn't really do the image of Europe all that good (neither was the commentary really convincing, but I'll just leave it at this).
Also, what's up with the demands Americans make when they want to go to Europe? What's up with Mew2king asking for strings of tournaments Brawl+Melee to be organized in his honor? Yes, M2k tends to do silly things like that, but I can't say any of us really felt honored to be able to drag our butts through all sorts of organizing just to have M2k attend one of our tournaments.
I won't note that Europeans travel to the US all the time, yet we rarely get any American to visit our tournaments. After all, I can't blame people for not willing to spend that much money on Smash, but it's something worth noting.
My motivation for this is gone now, can't get myself to effectively troll at the moment so I'll just leave it with this.
