Evo 2kXV Competitive Impressions

[Unknownkid]

I swear if Larry pulls out Falco for this MU... Then again, I don't know what customs Falco vs. customs Villager would be like or what Fox, Luigi, or Sheik vs. Villager in general is like; default Falco vs. Villager was considered even. You trade speed, hit confirms, and mobility for "survivability", more edgeguarding tools, and in general, more power or kill options. Then again, Larry's Fox is better than his Falco which is probably worse than his Luigi and Sheik.

Hmm... Interesting. Void Reflector might help in this matchup now that I think about it. Does it work against Explosive Balloon Trip?

It really depends on Larry. He is known for not knowing the matchup but progresses improve as the match goes down. If semi finals Bo3 then we won't see Falco unless he loses badly to CaptAwesum. If it is Bo5, I can see him switching to Falco eventually. Or we can hope so.

NinjaLink did a video about which characters can do something against Ledgestalling Villager. I cannot seem to find it.

 

[Deleted member]

Disregard this post

 

[Kofu]

Falco's default Reflector is a pain in the butt for Villager but since it IS a commitment he has to be careful lest Villager NAir/DAir him. I actually don't know what Reflector Void negates or reflects of Villager's, but I'd wager most things are negated. The extreme balloons would likely be destroyed just from contact with the hitbox.

 

[Teshie U]

where is the full bracket for tomorrow?

 

[deepseadiva]

The 16 players still in winners:

Spoiler

ZeRo
John #s
Ally
MJG
Abadango
Angel Cortes
ESAM
???
Nairo
False
Larry Lurr
CaptAwesum
StaticManny
FOW
Mr-R
Dapuffster

This is a lot of variety.

Let's see what another day filters out.

 

[FullMoon]

Okay so did aMSa get eliminated or is he still in Losers?

 

[Baskerville]

The amount of upsets that I missed...

 

[ぱみゅ]

The ??? Player is the Mexican Regi, who plays Mr. Game and Watch, and double two-stocked Salem.

 

[TheZyzyva]

Cant believe 2 Villagers made it through, its not even a good strategy, people just suck at playing against it since its so different. (Poor Tweek though) Capt. Awesum looks like hes even playing worse now than when he nearly beat Vinnie at a Smash Attack.

People need to stop blaming the customs for this stuff; everyone knew customs were live at EVO, they only have themselves to blame for not preparing right. Theres a ton of stuff in this game that are jank that arent customs that everyone has learned to deal with just fine (well Nintendo dealt with the Hoo Hah for us to be fair). Simple fact is people were lazy with their prep and are using 'customs' as their scapegoat. I totally understand that customs can be a pain to unlock and having to learn their nuances takes a long time, but not learning them is a personal problem. If youre too lazy and dont want to deal with that then just say so, thats much more respectable than saying theyre jank.

Customs did not beat anyone today, players beat people. Stop being so stubborn and actually attempt to learn the customs and suddenly theyre not a problem. Im legitimately furious Capt. Awesum is still in winners; hes not a great player and should be knocked out by now. All anyone had to do was learn the matchup in the 6+ months of time they had. But they didnt. And I dont feel sorry for them.

Edit: Other thought on customs: The only custom that is actually jank is Heavy Skull Bash. Kong Cyclone is close simply cause its so dang annoying, but with some practice it can be dealt with consistantly. Cant believe some of what Im seeing people complain about. Rocket Barrel Attack is OP now why? Because it was utilized effectively by a skilled player? So should all the powerful specials that can be combod into be complained about? Great, Ive always hated Luigis d-throw nado, glad thats acceptable to cry about now! Look out ZSS, default boost kick is about to get banned! Might as well do something about bouncing fish while we're at it, its just too OP.

Seriously though, I dont care if someones for or against customs, just dont lie about why you are. This is Smash Bros, half the game is based around 'jank'. If thats your argument against customs, youre in the wrong game.

 

[FullMoon]

Guys I got aMSa taken out.

Brb killing myself.

 

[Ffamran]

Hmm... Interesting. Void Reflector might help in this matchup now that I think about it. Does it work against Explosive Balloon Trip?

None of Villager's projectiles are energy-based, so Reflector and Reflector Void are more like personal preference since they'll still reflect Villager's physical projectiles. If you want to kill and juggle, go with Void, but the question would be how do you get a campy Villager in a position to juggle and kill like that. Default is safer because of its speed, but with amount of projectiles going to be thrown out and most of them won't kill early, it's better to avoid and shield them. Still, because of the massive amounts of projectiles, default would be safer for poking since it's faster.

I don't know if it'll do anything to the balloons other than destroy them. Probably better to time a ledge trumping, Down Smash, or Explosive Blaster than try to use a Reflector to pop the balloons or negate the explosion. Still, a disjoint like that means if Falco can precisely hit just the balloons, he could gimp Villager, but if he fails, he won't be near the explosions.

It really depends on Larry. He is known for not knowing the matchup but progresses improve as the match goes down. If semi finals Bo3 then we won't see Falco unless he loses badly to CaptAwesum. If it is Bo5, I can see him switching to Falco eventually. Or we can hope so.

I can think of a strategy Larry could do. Use Luigi or Sheik to feel the first match out. Fox and Falco are the trump cards with Falco probably being the last resort. The main issue is like I said, I don't think there are any prominent Villagers in CA.

Going ham with Fox works, but CaptAwesum could figure out Larry's Fox or any character really. Testing with Fox, Falco, Sheik, and Luigi let's him try stuff and figure CaptAwesum out, but he needs to do it in a way that doesn't tip him off. If CaptAwesum figures out what Larry's doing, he should immediately change things to mess with Larry. Hell, he could figure it out immediately, use a secondary, beat Larry or figure Larry out, and then switch to Villager and wreck Larry.

Edit: Forgot about this: if Falco can catch Villager with a jab, he might be able to do this: https://youtu.be/K1gk1M4ubnk.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Guys I got aMSa taken out.

Brb killing myself.

You just made me realize he was talking about Melee in this tweet lol
https://twitter.com/aMSaRedyoshi/status/622289812821663744

 

[TheZyzyva]

All Larry needs to do is be patient and wait for his opportunities. Wait for the sapling to wilt, then go in for a grab when Capt. Awesum pulls out the Lloid. You can run right through the rocket before it gets a hitbox and get Villager before the endlag is up. The first time Awesum made waves at a Smash Attack MikeKirby did this the whole fight and bodied him. The next time he showed up though it was like everyone forgot you could run through Lloid and literally no one did it; Vinnie beat him the long way without doing it. I think I saw K9 do it once today and that was it.

Also would love to see a Ness or G&W go against a custom Villager. Free heals and buckets from all the explosions!

 

[PUK]

MVD did deal very well against Hbox custom villager, why everyone is not doing the same thing?

 

[Gawain]

Guys I got aMSa taken out.

Brb killing myself.

Man, why'd he have to lose to Dabuz lol. Greninja is a million times more interesting than Rosalina.

Also John Numbers was looking pretty great repping that WFT.

Also, I really disagree with the guy saying that customs didn't beat people. Plenty of matches were won and lost based almost 100% on customs. Trying to act like they don't significantly mess with things is a poor showing.

 

[TheMiSP]

How many people are left???

 

[TheZyzyva]

Man, why'd he have to lose to Dabuz lol. Greninja is a million times more interesting than Rosalina.

Also John Numbers was looking pretty great repping that WFT.

Also, I really disagree with the guy saying that customs didn't beat people. Plenty of matches were won and lost based almost 100% on customs. Trying to act like they don't significantly mess with things is a poor showing.

Being ill-prepared to deal with customs is the fault of the player, not the move itself. It would be the same if someone didnt know about KO punch, or the absurd knock-back of Luma. Anyone who lost 100% due to customs 100% deserved to lose.

Colin, its Top 32 now, 16 in winners and 16 in losers if I recall correctly.

 

[Gawain]

Being ill-prepared to deal with customs is the fault of the player, not the move itself. It would be the same if someone didnt know about KO punch, or the absurd knock-back of Luma. Anyone who lost 100% due to customs 100% deserved to lose.

Colin, its Top 32 now, 16 in winners and 16 in losers if I recall correctly.

It's not about not being prepared for it. They are polarizing and centralizing. Some customs are okay, like Fox's drilling up B. It has downsides as well as upsides to the default. Some like cyclone and dragon rush are just straight up objectively better in every way. So much so that they become the dominating part of that characters strategy in some cases. And that's really fraudulent if I'm being straight up honest. Some people are using them as a crutch because they make it straight up easier to outplay someone. Trying to deny that some customs do this is foolhardy.

If many players are getting by through customs at the biggest tournament in the world, then your anecdotal evidence of them being "easy to beat by learning" probably isn't true, to be blunt. Do you earnestly believe that these people didn't prepare for these setups? Be honest with yourself on that.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Why are there no past broadcast for smash 4? Will there be any? If so, when? There are past broadcasts for melee, so why none for smash 4?

Would really like a chance to watch the games before the games of today take place!

 

[ZcK]

So is aMSa still living then? Cool

Also sometimes being prepared to customs doesnt save you from being hit with a banana and die from an Up-B or getting trapped on a twisting Fox or a gorilla cyclone. They don`t make people auto-win but certainly it makes players more cautious and sometimes gives good characters even more options (skull bash), I hate them though, but that doesn´t make them game breaking or unfair if the one receiving the benefits is someone who needs them.

Given that, deciding which characters should use them or not is far from practical and makes the non-custom meta more appealing in a practical sense.

Anyway its not like the non customs meta lacks any unfair stuff (Needles), diference is that these things are more likely to get patched than the customs given how Sakurai thinks of them.

 

[webbedspace]

Here are all the people Captawesum defeated in pools, according to the tournament bracket site:
(a Bye)
Zombe
Jazstrono
Jamelle Savage
Rain
K9sbruce

The first three are not too noteworthy, so the "blame" (if you can call it that) for letting him advance this far really falls to the latter two.

Why are there no past broadcast for smash 4? Will there be any? If so, when? There are past broadcasts for melee, so why none for smash 4?

Unfortunately, whoever set up the SRKEVO4 twitch account did not enable VOD saving, so a past broadcast wasn't created for the Smash 4 Pools. Sorry, you're out of luck. (Fortunately SRKEVO1 does have VODs enabled.)

 

[Teshie U]

Man, why'd he have to lose to Dabuz lol. Greninja is a million times more interesting than Rosalina.

Also John Numbers was looking pretty great repping that WFT.

Also, I really disagree with the guy saying that customs didn't beat people. Plenty of matches were won and lost based almost 100% on customs. Trying to act like they don't significantly mess with things is a poor showing.

Customs dont beat people. People beat people with customs. Just like any other move. Plenty of matches are won and lost because Falcon Fsmash kills at 50 or because diddy rolls across the stage with a banana under his shield.

Customs add alot of cool stuff and a few unfair things to the game. But the game already had alot of cool stuff and a few unfair things.

 

[Yoh1]

Anyone know if the smash 4 matches will be uploaded and where? I missed a lot of matches and the twitch page didn't have them up.

 

[Xermo]

>Player is objectively bad
>runs a custom set that's extremely polarizing and dictates the flow of the match
>opponent is the one who deserves to lose because he didn't "prepare" for this
>????

You guys hearing yourselves, here? vLoadouts don't create characters who win by sticking to the ledge or repeatedly throwing out the same move, lol.

 

[PUK]

It still an extremely frail strategy, and multiple players showed that.
MVD wasn't going in as soon as he has the lead for exemple. That was smart since it was nullifyingg villager ledge play.
I dislike villager ledge camp, but it's obvious when you look the match that it wins because opponents do what villager want.
Then we have captain awesum, a very boring player when he camps, mostly because he camps hard, but we can't deny that he shows a lot of talent and subtility when he needs to claim the lead or take the stock.

 

[OddCrow]

Here are all the people Captawesum defeated in pools, according to the tournament bracket site:
(a Bye)
Zombe
Jazstrono
Jamelle Savage
Rain
K9sbruce

The first three are not too noteworthy, so the "blame" (if you can call it that) for letting him advance this far really falls to the latter two.


Unfortunately, whoever set up the SRKEVO4 twitch account did not enable VOD saving, so a past broadcast wasn't created for the Smash 4 Pools. Sorry, you're out of luck. (Fortunately SRKEVO1 does have VODs enabled.)

Actually, Zombe is a Pika main and #2 in the Reno PR. #1 and #3 and #5 from the Reno PR made it out of their pools too (#4 didn't attend). He got Captawesum first match which was just really unfortunate, I thought he was a lock to come out in winners.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Customs aside.

This is the first time I've heard people get upset at upsets.

 

[Teshie U]

>Player is objectively bad
>runs a custom set that's extremely polarizing and dictates the flow of the match
>opponent is the one who deserves to lose because he didn't "prepare" for this
>????

You guys hearing yourselves, here? vLoadouts don't create characters who win by sticking to the ledge or repeatedly throwing out the same move, lol.

Most top tiers in vanilla DO get away with throwing out the same moves over and over vs bad characters. Customs is no different, its just new bars being set for viability.

In Vanilla you ask yourself "can my character even punish diddy rolls without getting banana'd half the time" "can i approach through needles or catch sheik when she bouncing fishes away". In Custom you ask yourself "Can I ever actually KO DK or Villager".

You folks might be underestimating how young this game is and how many many matchups there are. Even overall better players run into something they aren't familiar with and take a quick loss at a super major with 2000 people. There is most likely someone in that event that could 2-0 Zero if they catch him off guard. Doesn't mean what they are doing is broken.

 

[Shaya]

Should the thread be closed for the night while the tournament's on stand by?
We're not a debate hall in this thread, we all know how to keep within sane expression on our various biases. Chill~

Unfortunately having tournament experience against this strategy is really unlikely due to perceptions. "Oh you're that guy playing with extreme balloons and trip sapling?" is what no one really wants to be ever.
And in the case of Japan I doubt they ran any custom legal tournaments at all.
So yeah, I'm sure most had a look at videos and maybe played around with them in training a little bit, but for practical tournament pressure experience against a potent strategy most players are out of luck. Heck, K9's brother SS mains Villager.... but even then I know a lot of the time SS played without customs, for that result to happen is really surprising.

A lot of upsets have happened but this is by players who have likely not been working specifically with customs in mind during the almost SIX months from Apex (and the announcement of them being legal being like 4+? months ago).
Echoing the very wise Tesh, even ZeRo could be 2-0'd by something he isn't experienced enough in.
Knowing how futile expecting any result to not be a proverbial hammer knock on the nail in a coffin it behooves me to not really tinge responses with my stance knowing that there is more player fault to be had here then anti-customers [sic lel] are expressing.

 

[TheZyzyva]

Some people are abusing the fact that not everyone knows how to deal with customs right now, just like Bowser got abused a year ago, and how LM was abused at launch. But because they were around often enough, players figured out the best way to play against them. The same thing would happen for most every custom (HSB aside) if more people played with them more often. Thats why Capt. Awesum cant win a local but can make it to top 32 at EVO.

* Really want to see that Dabuz/Manny match.

Note: sanity censorship.

 

[Pazx]

Locking this thread for the quietest 6 (!!!! 8am start ty mr wizard) hours of the day is strange but understandable.

>Player is objectively bad
>runs a custom set that's extremely polarizing and dictates the flow of the match
>opponent is the one who deserves to lose because he didn't "prepare" for this
>????

You guys hearing yourselves, here? vLoadouts don't create characters who win by sticking to the ledge or repeatedly throwing out the same move, lol.

This isn't directed entirely at you but it's a general statement towards people's responses to CaptAwesum - Short of a cardiac arrest there are very few things that can prevent you saying "the player who won deserved to win". You can say "the better player lost" but you can't say Captain Awesum didn't deserve to win his matches. He played by the rules and came out on top. Custom moves accentuate matchup inexperience, and matchup inexperience is a valid factor in determining who wins. If it wasn't, you'd have to discredit everything aMSa has ever accomplished in Melee (see also: Mango!Puff).

 

[Sinister Slush]

I think people don't realize that Japan knows customs are bad and silly, so they don't play with em at all in tournament.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Here are all the people Captawesum defeated in pools, according to the tournament bracket site:
(a Bye)
Zombe
Jazstrono
Jamelle Savage
Rain
K9sbruce

The first three are not too noteworthy, so the "blame" (if you can call it that) for letting him advance this far really falls to the latter two.


Unfortunately, whoever set up the SRKEVO4 twitch account did not enable VOD saving, so a past broadcast wasn't created for the Smash 4 Pools. Sorry, you're out of luck. (Fortunately SRKEVO1 does have VODs enabled.)

What da ****? : (((((( Those weren't just pools, those were quarterfinals too. Like come on, if you consider time zones that's really weird, I'd have to be up all night to watch it and thats just not possible after a busy day. Thank for the information though! Brb reading through this thread instead

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I think people don't realize that Japan knows customs are bad and silly, so they don't play with em at all in tournament.

They are also incredibly conservative with their stage selections.

Just because they do it doesn't make it better.

 

[Yikarur]

I'd really like to see a bracket.
nice that dapuffster is still in the wnner bracket. But I don't think he uses his charactersr potential to the fullest. Welp, MiniMii will be dead after Evo anyway.

 

[Sinister Slush]

They are also incredibly conservative with their stage selections.

Just because they do it doesn't make it better.

Honestly, back in Brawl I used to think the same way. But the past 5ish months I've been thinking, watching, playing etc. of matches
All we ****ing choose is startville and maybe FD or BF. Tell me, how many times have we saw Delfino halberd lylat today?

Any other time somebody might choose a different stage is extremely specific instances if the player truly wants to win like Halberd if they're Rosalina for example while BF clones like Dreamland is the alternative but people still default to Vanilla BF anyways.


If Miiverse legal at EVO?

 

[Pazx]

I'd really like to see a bracket.
nice that dapuffster is still in the wnner bracket. But I don't think he uses his charactersr potential to the fullest. Welp, MiniMii will be dead after Evo anyway.

IIRC he uses default size Mii Brawler because he thinks x122SS is... too good, but also not that good in some matchups?

Also in regards to your top 8 comment in the other thread, I think Mii Brawler is top 20 for sure but saying any better with any sort of certainty is pushing it. There are a lot of good characters in this game but very few of them have limitations like him (ZSS's grab, Luigi's mobility come to mind).

I'll elaborate on that because Nick Riddle was... okay with him, I'd hesitate to say impressive and it was clear that Vinnie didn't know the intricacies of the matchup and I'm happy to admit that I'm slightly underrating the character. However as I've said before, against a high level opponent with experience with and against the character Mii Brawler struggles to kills. I look forward to seeing more of Nick and Dapuffster this weekend but sadly I don't think they'll be proving me wrong, if people haven't prepared for custom Villager they haven't prepared for Mii Brawler and I expect the perceived strengths of both of these characters to drop over time.

 

[TriTails]

*Apex 2015 Luigi was the 3rd most used character*
*EVO 2015 Luigi only has two players*

The hype wasn't long I guess.

Aside from Mr. CC, who else use Luigi? And what happened to them? Did they at least manage to be in losers or got taken out?

 

[webbedspace]

Honestly, back in Brawl I used to think the same way. But the past 5ish months I've been thinking, watching, playing etc. of matches
All we ****ing choose is startville and maybe FD or BF. Tell me, how many times have we saw Delfino halberd lylat today?

Any other time somebody might choose a different stage is extremely specific instances if the player truly wants to win like Halberd if they're Rosalina for example while BF clones like Dreamland is the alternative but people still default to Vanilla BF anyways.

Is this an argument in favour of banning stages solely because they're... unpopular? If we're banning things for just being unpopular, we might as well ban Dr. Mario and Pac-Man, since they're only picked in extremely specific instances.

Speaking of Pac-Man, MVD chose Castle Siege as his counterpick against Abadango today, and fought a sparkling match that forced his opponent to be on the move constantly as the stage shifted - a variety of battle you can't just get from Smashville or Town & City.

 

[Sinister Slush]

No.
It's talking about the stagelist that Japan uses. Back then and currently now, people think the whole 3 stages (in brawl) and Omegas only (smash 4) is silly, but in reality it's pretty much ingenious since that's all we play on anyways.