What set should I provide analysis for this tournament? Hurt vs Sparg0?
Yes, please do. I thought Hurt had a really good shot at taking this tournament. In my opinion his Snake plays like a more optimized and technical version of Ally's.
He's different from Ally of course. But still has more in common with Ally than other Snakes like Appolokage, MVD, Alandiss.
The commonality they share being that generally they actively hunt their opponents rather than try to force them to approach in order to punish said approach. They use grenades in order to control space so that they force opponents into scraps which they then win with Snakes incredible normals. Normals which are normally held back because of Snakes garbage mobility become much stronger once mobility is partially taken out of the picture by space being cut off.
Of course all Snakes use grenades in order to be able to use Snakes normals. But Ally relied on and used Snakes normals far more confidently than the other Snakes. He could forego using grenades at all when he didn't need to and just go in with aggressive bairs dash attacks.
If you play like this you get the option of switching to camping when needed. You have to be the one who pushes the pace in order to be able to weaponize it. If you do that your camping is going to be way more effective when you use it because its going to throw the opponent off.
Imo exceptional players who play characters with ranged tools always start by applying pressure and then start switching back and forth between offensive pressuring and camping continuously changing the direction of the dance to throw their opponents off. Not letting there be a continuous flow by disrupting it, not letting your opponent get a grip on either your offence or defence. When you dictate you show your hand by definition. You give the opponent the information they need to beat you. But if you are aware of this you can do it on purpose only to switch it up the moment you know your opponent completes their download. But in order to do this you have to be the one who is leading, who is feeding their opponent moreso than being fed.
Not all characters can do this, but those who can should. Zero was doing this all throughout sm4sh with Diddy. Tweek does not do it consistently. Doesn't seen aware of weaponizing pace as a thing at all. I think its a big weakness of his. He's too passive, his pace is predictable and not dynamic, tied to his mental state which he has never learned to fully control and often displays very clearly whereafter he ends up paying for it. He's kind of like a polar opposite to Ally.
For how good a player Ally was he really was garbage in some regards. He was slow to learn and use tech, never optimized his combo routes and punishes. Preffering playing a relatively simple non taxing style based around good old reliable stuff. A lot of his fundies were mediocre too, but when it came to the mental parts he was on another level than everyone else except perhaps Glutonny. Its like he foregoed execution in order to free up his cognitive resources and be able to excell at the mental parts of battles.
At his best he played fearlessly (but not recklessly like Appolokage) and was very good at adjusting to his opponents. He didn't master matchups so much as he mastered his opponents. Yomi wise he'd get the upper hand. He could win unwinnable matchups because of this. He beat Ken despite the Sonic/Mario matchup being trash for Mario. And he did it at least twice iirc. Imo he was a fascinating anomaly of a player who played a different game than the rest.
But Ally had weaknesses that I don't see in Hurt. He could look highly mediocre at times, going to game 5 in pools vs randoms far below his level. There was a lazyness in him. He would play worse if his opponent played worse and vice versa. And again he was generally slow at picking up and utilizing tech. His combos were not as optimized as they should have been. He preferred relying on his cerebral abilities to push advantage rather than grinding and didn't seem willing or motivated enough to do both.
As a consequence Ally also struggled vs the best of the best who played the kind of classic disciplined smash which you recently described. That style would shut him down and not let him get his own playstyle going. And he would just lose due to not making the most out of the hits he got.
He always got wrecked by Leo who thought Ally was overrated. I don't think he was overrated, he just had a very uneven and strange distribution of skills.
In Sm4sh I don't think he ever really learnt to consistently perfect pivot. If he did it was late in the games span. His combo game was garbage compared to Zenou's. And yet he his Mario was vastly superior to anyone else's despite its blatant shortcomings. The same was true of his ultimate Snake while he was active.
With Hurt I see a player who like Ally understands how Snake can and should be played. Someone who knows how to control and thereby weaponize the pace. But who unlike Ally is young and hungry and motivated to push himself and optimize, and that is a dangerous thing.
Still think players like Sparg0 could adjust. Maybe, his aggressive style with Cloud is not going to cut it though. What happened was not surprising. Think Joker does better vs Snake, but I'm relying on old meta info which might not be relevant anymore.
vs Onin
