Tieretically speaking...
If xXx-NoobRuler-xXx comes in 7th with Ganondorf, and flamexemblemxpryde comes in 2nd with Fox and Marth, does that mean Noobruler has done just as well as flamexemblem in the tournament? Has he performed better than him?
Of course not. The rift exists in what defines the "top 25" players and everyone will have a different view on that. Ranking five places above a Ganondorf player with Fox can go either way; sure, Fox is probably better, but there's a grey area and you do have to consider how the rest of the tournament went and the specific performance of those players.
It seems rational and realistic to me that placing five spots above someone is not the clear-cut defining fact that says "I'm better than you." All it means is, "I just beat you.," but I recognize now that not everyone shares this point of view and that's fine.
I agree with Levi and Tyson, but I didn't want to say anything because people would just flame and spaz and all this over a video game. But Calgary is ridiculously over represented for some players while St. Albert and Red Deer gets the shaft.
I certainly agree to some extent, but I don't really see how Calgary is ridiculously over-represented with 7 players while St. Albert has 3 on the list, but either way, all previous drafts of the power rankings are pretty much invalid now anyway.
Unlike Levi, you have my 100% trust, and i know that you wouldn't cheat or sabotage the lists at all, and I'm sure a lot of the people in CCSC will agree with me, but Randall, I have to agree with everyone, you're really too high on the rankings.
I'm not responsible for the current list or how I placed upon it and though I appreciate your support, I don't know why you would single out
me of all the placements.
Just cause you use a low-tier character doesn't mean you can john about losing to high tier characters. Look at Stuey Louey and Sidney for example. I mean, they use Bowser and Pikachu, who are even lower on the tier list then the weege.
I agree and I admire that Sid has been able to overcome the deficiencies with Pikachu's character build to confidently compete against anyone else on the SSBM roster. He has a stellar level of competition up in Edmonton full of skilled high-tier players and over time, he has opted to find ways to beat them. He's done precisely what I aspire to...although I think Luigi has more style.
There is no cowardry in how Brad plays, if the Weege can't get the job done, hire a moar experienced employee. Like Fox. Saying that you lost with Luigi because of Luigi pride and refuse to switch characters is a john in and of itself. It's just a more disguised way of saying that you just can't beat the person in my eyes. But I still respect you Randall.
You and Brad should have a deathmatch for the spot so that we can finally no johns the whole thing until the next revision.
Okay okay and at this point, there's waaaaay too much emphasis on ME. Yeesh.
Look, I don't care how I appear on the power rankings. That's a misconception I'd like to clear up right now. I'm a Luigi player trying to represent for Luigis around the world and just as I'd rather place well with Luigi than win with Fox, I'd much rather be the 7th best competitive Luigi main in the global community than 7th best player in Central Canada.
Why? Because at out-of-state tournaments, nobody gives a crap about playing some random Marth from some city that nobody is going to remember when the match is over. People
remember Luigi and when I find other Luigi players, they've usually heard of me and (much to my surprise) say "hey, I've seen videos of you!" Then they take a greater interest in where I'm from and it continues to fuel a positive social environment. Nobody remembers when they get KO'd by a Marth f-smash, but you get a helluva lot more "wtf"s and "ohmygod"s sending someone off the top with a jab->up+B (and occasionally a jovial shoutout mentioning how broken it is
). To me, people who claim to be Luigi players and auto-switch to some high tiers when the matchup is too difficult are the biggest "johners" of them all and have no business running around claiming how awesome they are with Luigi in tournaments just because they know how to abuse space animals that don't know the matchup.
As to Brad, well you know what...I really don't know how I fare against Brad these days. To be honest, we actually haven't played that many matches since his skill level came into question. Maybe a couple sets at the bi-weeklies that I certainly lost, but in terms of straight one-on-one games against that Sheik...I've probably played less than 10 in the last six months!
Which brings me to the subject of "johns" and comments like, "just because you main a low tier character doesn't mean you can john about it."
This is something I was trying to explain to Levi yesterday: anyone who watches a match or plays a match and doesn't lose is looking for johns SO HARD that you can find them anywhere even if they don't exist. When Fox overcomes Luigi with his speed and jump-cancelled shines on Yoshi's Story for a swift and guaranteed low-damage kill, yeah I might say, "Sometimes, Luigi is just easy to kill, what can I say..."
What I don't understand is how that qualifies as a "character john." That's not a john, that's a fact and the reason that I got KO'd is because
I (that is ME, the player, myself, R.J.M.) failed to account for how easily he can be shined off the edge in that position and failed to take precautions to prevent it from happening.
Of course, because I don't specify that, all you hear is johns. "Controller johns" are may be the most common of them all and because they are so pervasive, people seem to have a zero-tolerance policy about it. Then there's this huge double standard because I've
never found a competitive player who doesn't
feel the difference between using a controller that you're not used to. So the
excuse sounds valid to me, BUT what makes it a "john" is when you publicly announce that the reason you lost is because of the controller which (even though it may be true, or at least have been a factor) is totally unsportsmanlike. The match is done, it's over, you lost and you don't get a rematch. Deal with it.
So listen, I don't john about my character. When I lose, it's my fault and sometimes it's because I'm just not playing at the top of my game that particular day. AGAIN, that sounds like a john, but read it again:
I'm not playing at the top of my game. It is
I,
ME,
my game, that is responsible for the loss, nothing else. No johns.
First off - character counters and tiers. If one wishes to be on this 25 person PR, it is assumed that you play the game at least semi competitively. In this game, it is true that some characters fare better against others due to metagame and character physics. Yes, Sheik is going to chainthrow pikachu to at least 70%. There's nothing really that Pikachu can do about it. If that's the case, and you are playing the game competitively, and you cannot overcome the chainthrowing Sheik with Pikachu, what are you going to do? Keep on losing? That's a fine option, but if you want to be ranked well, losing isn't going to help you.
Now, moving on to the whole "high tier" ordeal. Randall, if you don't like losing to high tier characters then you either main a high tier character and have Luigi as a secondary or vice versa. If your determined to not have a high tier character at your disposal, then continue working with Luigi and get better then you already are.
Again, I have high tier characters at my disposal, but that's exactly what happens to them in tournaments: I dispose of them.
I have no problem losing to high-tier characters. In fact, most of the Luigi vs. High Tier matchups are a lot closer in my mind than a lot of people give them credit for
strictly because I have chosen to take him into tournament and play a wide variety of smashers who play high tiers in distinctly different ways. It's a challenging and fascinating learning curve most of the time.
That said, the character balance issues that
are frustrating are the ones where there is a
wide gap in the level of skill required to beat Luigi versus the level of skill required to beat the opposing character
as Luigi.
For example, I like Marth matchups because I can sometimes win them and I know
how to win them. Of course, as Pichu pointed out, "You don't have to be good to know how to be good." Sure, I know what you have to do to beat Marth as Luigi but that doesn't mean I'm going to be able to implement it 100% of the time. It's easy for a Marth to spam double f-airs on a stage with platforms and pretty much eliminate Luigi's entire approach; a Marth who knows how to play against Luigi is even better at closing those doors. It's a tough matchup and I clearly have the disadvantage going in, but I know how to overcome it. Only through practicing and playing against Marths more frequently will I be able to develop those skills and strategies more consistently.
On the other hand, I dislike Samus matchups because I don't know how to deal with it and haven't had nearly enough practice to investigate a good strategy. Between bombs, missile spamming, charge shots and the insane recovery, not only is Luigi stripped of his typical approaches...he's also taking damage at the same time and has nowhere to go.
Now, this is assuming I'm playing against a decent Samus who knows about how overwhelming that sort of approach can be for a character whose only projectile pretty much disintegrates at arm's length. A skilled Samus. But I've lost entire stocks to a Samus who just sits and presses down+B because I can't come up with an approach that will get through multiple little bombs and explosions. It is incredibly irritating to have to focus so strongly on how you can use the stage you're on and what kind of angles and spacing are required to get in there while the Samus player just sits there bouncing around in ball form. If he chooses to play like such a coward to win a matchup where he
already has a significant advantage, it strikes me as a crime against Nintendo to call him a better player than I. I mean come on, turtling against
Luigi?? Are you gonna play the game or not?
It's about the level of effort; the skill you put to use in order to defeat your opponent. I know some characters are stronger than others and that most characters can kill Luigi a lot easier than he can kill them. That's fine, but I'd rather be 4-stocked by Shwn's Samus in two minutes than lose 4-3 to some random that takes ten minutes because he sits and bombs for the whole match. That way at least I learn something and it becomes a contest of skill instead of what may as well be a singe player carnival contest called "See how many times you can d-air the bouncing bounty hunter."
This is probably starting to sound a lot like johns again since you're not in my shoes, so I guess I should mention how I feel about Luigi's potential. I know he has the tools to win in tough matchups like Marth and Samus because I've seen it done against ranked Samus players and I've personally played against ranked Marth players (I lost, but the tools to win were still evidently available).
Recently, I've become more comfortable with the Peach matchup and I finally know how to win it, though when it comes to the skill level required to beat Peach as Luigi compared to beating Luigi as Peach, that is still the largest imbalance for my character. She doesn't have to space anything due to the aerial priority and massive hitboxes--even the gayest of all Luigi's moves, the neutral air, is outdone by Peach's and it took a long time just to swallow the challenge before finally figuring out how to do it.
Recognize that I'm talking about the characters now and not the players; which means I'm not making johns, I'm talking about the game and the inherent challenges a Luigi player faces in that match. Learning how to beat Peach took a long time and it took a lot of matches against Peach to figure it out. Just like with the Marth strategies, they must be practiced and built-in to your natural game in order to be effective.
When it comes to Sheik,
I don't know how to win. Neither of the Pro Impact Players have
ever played Sheik competitively and in fact, I can't remember seeing either of their names over Sheik's character ever since we first played the game. My brother plays Sheik, but he is not competitive and neither of us even owned a Gamecube while I was still living at home--and that was five years ago. There's a huge shortage of good documentation about Luigi vs. Sheik strategies from reputable players and there's an equally huge shortage of videos to demonstrate what it takes to win. The biggest problem I've had isn't really related to how to beat a skilled Sheik, though--it's about how to beat a gay one and I simply don't have the experience.
I can count five Sheiks that I have ever played against as Luigi:
My brother is one, and he is relatively easy to beat just because of my inherent ability to play the game. I've played him more than any other Sheik, though still not that much and all I've learned from facing him is what works against a Sheik with bad DI and to shield grab dash attacks because that was his primary approach.
Preston is two and I think we had one set, maybe two and I don't even remember the results. He was a far better Sheik than my brother and played a technical game that I had no exposure to on the opposing side.
Levi is three and again, we probably haven't played more than a couple matches so I don't remember how they went and I certainly didn't retain any good Sheik strategies from them.
Vwins is four. In Toronto, I played against Vwins' Sheik in pools and lost 4-2. As we all know, Vwins plays like a robot and again, it was a style of play that is totally foreign to my Luigi yet I found it easier to adapt to because it was a test of skill. He played an excellent mental game that was based on the actions of his opponent rather than the inherent strength of his character against mine.
Brad is five and he plays like my brother, except he knows how to throw more attacks of a lesser variety, is a little better at DI and teching, and waaaay better at the basic game (i.e. projectile accuracy/timing, struggling to get out of grabs, etc.). And he hardly ever seems to edgehog at all. It's weird.
All in all, I'm pretty sure that in six years of gameplay, I have almost definitely played fewer than 100 1v1 matches against
any Sheik and that is why I don't know how to win it. It takes time, you know? Practice.
Every two weeks, I run a tournament where all these smashers come over to my house, usually start with a few friendlies while I set up registration stuff and wait for the rest to show. They spend anywhere from 5-7 hours there and whenever they're not involved in a tournament match, they're playing against one another on auxiliary televisions. I play my tournament sets, run the brackets, record the videos and towards the end, I usually get to play teams for fun while we wait for everyone's ride to show up.
The fact is, I don't get to play this game that much and that's my biggest sacrifice in doing the community work.
I typically spend about 3-4 hours a day doing
something smash-related, but actual competitive gameplay? Well, bi-weeklies are a write-off. Me and Mitch play maybe twice a week for a few hours and that's the most valuable time I can use to improve my game because there is no distraction, no responsibilities hovering over my head and no pressure associated with a tournament atmosphere. Though, Mitch doesn't play Marth or Sheik or Samus or Peach. (That's why it took me eight months to learn how to beat Peach, ten months to learn how to beat Marth and the other two are still sitting on the back burner, yet I've known what it takes to beat Falcos and Ice Climbers since before the bi-weeklies even got fully underway.) Sometimes I'll travel down south to play with Levi and company, but that typically turns into teams really fast. Or the particularly thrilling all-Luigi taunt-only free-for-all battles with items.
And it's fine if you guys want to do that--the game is ultimately about fun after all--but it's a skill game to me now, a sport. I did all the goofy matches in my first three years of playing, but when it becomes a sport, sports require training and it's not worth my while to piss around with black hole glitches and taunt-only matches.
I don't want to have some deathmatch against Brad to fight it out for a spot on the power rankings, I just want practice! Forget trying to work the anti-Sheik strategies into my Luigi game, I don't even know what those strategies are yet! Eep! It takes investigation, experimentation and a probably a whole lot of losing just like it did against Peach and Marth.
Mitchell has said before that from a technical point of view, there's nothing wrong with my Weege and although I know that's not 100% true, the list of things that I can't do competently in practice is pretty darn small. The tools are all at my disposal but once you have the tools, you still have to learn how to use them for each individual job.
I'm not about to try and blame losing a match on my lack of experience against that character, but I feel like I reserve the right to acknowledge why I don't perform as well as I should
in general. The matches that I lose are lost because I wasn't good enough to win them, yes.
But, that's my john: The reason that
I'm not good enough is because
I don't get to play. My fault? I don't think so.
But do I deserve special treatment on the power rankings because of that?
