Alright, back in the day, when the Smash world was young, things were very different from how they are now. The world of Smash was an open book of light-hearted amusement, for Smash brothers was a game of merriment to be partaken with one's good friends. That doesn't mean there wasn't some friendly rivalry going on. My high school friends and I were particularly fond of games where all 4 players could participate, thus lots of FFAs and 2v2s (this is where I learned how to deal with a lot of things going on at once). We had all played SSB on the n64 for about a year, and were so very excited for a sequel. Much revelry followed, as we all took to Melee very well, even my friend who was disappointed Pika's new shortcomings. He settled on Marth, because he had a sword and good reach and favored his strategic but rather simple playstyle (dude, wtf, that's 2 games in a row where the first person he picks up is top tier ;_.
6 months pass, and one of my other friends discovers the realm of GameFAQs. Soon after that we become engrossed in Stadium competitions, and make names for ourselves in the early days of Cruel Melee. This was before the days of immobilization tactics and 1000 KOs was an impressive total. We did this for about another 6-8 months (we're at about February of '03 for those of you keeping score) when some people from a place called the Smash World Forums showed up to torment and flame the happy-go-lucky GameFAQs members, saying they were the ultimate Smash community because they held tournaments and so they were better players. Long story short there, GameFAQs remained the pinnacle of single player modes, while SWF became the VS mode proving grounds. I made an account here in probably March, but then soon came the massive server crash, which lasted for about 2 months. At the start of June SWF was reborn, and tons of people flocked to it's boards and pages to see what this tournament hubbub was about. I joined days apart from such noteworthy names as Cort, M3D, even Iggy and KishSquared. I was drawn here by a guy I met simultaneously here and at GameFAQs who was interested in moving to Charlotte and wanted to set up a Melee scene here like he had previously done in Detroit. He was Joe V. aka jv3x3, now known as MLG_JV, inventor of the JV #-stock. An era was born.
My casual friends hadn't much interest in competitive Smash, despite being leagues ahead of other 'uninitiates' Joe had seen. They just liked playing games amongst themselves, and apparently being quite good at them for it. I can't blame them, there's a kind of bliss there that comes from being apart from the pressure of making one's place in an online community. Anyway, Joe and I started trying to host tournaments in my apartment in Raleigh. They didn't turn out so well, not many people were seriously interested in Melee enough to want to go and play it for money. About a month after joining SWF Joe was kind enough to recommend me for the SBR. I got in with, oh, about 45 posts to my name and soon voted on the 4th tier list. I still cling to the notion that my personal list rarely deviated and still came pretty close to the final one they posted last year. It wasn't until Ken appeared that year did people begin to take Marth seriously. I lulled hard back then (remember my friend with his habit of picking up top tier characters a week after first playing the game).
Well, a few of these tourneys and we'd garnered a bit of regional attention for ourselves. We went to Atlanta in August and got ourselves soundly beaten by these guys from Gainesville FL. You see, before FL was good, FL sucked balls. But before that, one crew from the north part of the state was in fact, very very good. These guys actually went to TG4, TG5, and TG6, and while there they were just part of the crowd, back home they were unstoppable. We got a hotel room for the night with these guys, which proved to be one of my fondest evenings playing Smash ever. There were 6 of us on 2 tvs, in a room supposedly occupied by one, so 2 people ended up sleeping on opposite sides of the bed, the others slept on the floor of the room, and Goldwing (the marth player that was the champion of the southeast for a great long while) was camped out on the floor of the bathroom. The next day we went to GA Tech and met bunches of people and introduced a lot of them to SWF, including 3 young high school kids named Wes, Bobby, and Miles. The first 2 everyone should know by now, they are of course OSM and just1111. Miles is their friend, and I understand he would still hang out at their tournaments after he quit entering (I saw him at SA-X which was awesome).
Not long after our trip to GA tech, some guys on GameFAQS showed up wanting to know if there were people around who played and when they could beat them. We took this challenge with smiles. Joe and I, and my friend Steve, drove out to Gastonia to meet these guys. They were named Joel, Josh, Jade, and Dustin, better known as Twiggy. They weren't bad, I ended up going more or less even with Twiggy during the months we later spent Smashing, but Joe was still ahead of them. They were, and still are, good guys.
Pretty soon we started trying to get attention and support from students at NC State for a tournament, and a kid shows up on Smashboards saying he'll help us get a dorm lounge for it and provide tv's and quite a few entrants. This kid, Bobby, was supposedly the big man on campus. He was the guy no one else could beat. I tried, but was unsuccessful, at dethroning him entirely, but I did hold my own against most of his followers. We played a lot and got along pretty well. Soon it came time for the tournament. It was early December, and Bobby and Joe were meeting for the first time. A guy from Alabama who we met at GA Tech drove all the way up to attend and brought Twiggy and Jade (Jolly) and Joe with him. A great tourney, all things considered. Joe and I dominated teams, which was an experiment with items in teams matches and also constituted some support of Joe's reasonings behind his later arguments for banning particular stages (in 2003 there was a large list of stages to choose from, "neutrals" hadn't been invented yet, and most everything went at this point).
Singles was pretty good. I lucked out in the end and Bobby lost to his teammate, a fox player who never ventured online in search of Smash greatness. I beat him in 3 close matches, but they were all mine. Then came Joe and me in loser's semis. My Sheik wasn't doing so hot against Joe's Marth and Peach, though I did win the first match on Cruise. It was game 4 so I dragged out my Falcon, which I'd been working on for 2 months since I first saw some of Isai's matches, and marvelled at the things he had come up with for him. This was the start of all NC Falcons. Don't let anyone tell you different. The match begins, and before the intro music on Poke Stadium was finished, I'd tripled Kneed Joe's Marth full across the stage 0-death. I took him to 1 stock before he could finally kill me, and I ended up 3 stocking him. Game 5, do or die time, so Joe, using his counterpick to change to Fox (we then randomed Floats because we hadn't helped come up with advanced slobs yet), and despite a moderately close match, Joe was victorious. I got 3rd. Joe ended up winning when CahPhoenix, the Alabaman, accidentally airdodged into the back of the ship on Cruise because he hadn't actually grabbed it yet. He would have edgehogged Joe for the win, game 5 of the 2nd set. Good times.
The very next week, or maybe the week after (whatever) Joe Bobby and I piled into Bobby's Cougar for the trip back to Atlanta and the first Smash Aid, GAWes's idea of holding a smash tourney and giving half the pot to charity. Bobby and I teamed, and were despondent to lose to the triple threat of CahPhoenix, GABobby, and Joe, who decided to play as one team and swap out memebers so they all got to play. They actually slobbed a player one match, which was uber gay because the Peaches (yeah, they both played Peach) played nothing alike. I was unhappy about that, so now there are no 3 man teams.
Life began to beckon for me at this point. It was right around new year's of '04. I moved back to Charlotte just as Joe was deciding to head back to Michigan, but before he went we went to the tournament to end all tournaments (lol) Game Over, in Woodbridge VA, hosted by H2YL. Joe, CahPhoenix and I were to take Cah's car (the dude drove all the way to NC from AL and was going to continue on to DC? holy hell) but not an hour into our part of the trip when we threw a rod and the car was a total loss. We finally got back to Charlotte when Joe decides he's staying home, so Cah and I take my somewhat-reliable Camaro all the way up there. Joe gave us directions and a phone number, and we left at about 1 in the morning. We got to Chudat's house at about 8:30 tired as sh*t. After a nap and some sound beatings we went to the tourney, where we met Azen, Chillindude, DA Dave, Wes, Mike G (though I didn't really meet him until he moved to ATL) and of course, Ken and Isai. The tourney was fun. I didn't get to play teams, but that's alright because it was the only national tournament in history to be TA off. Guess why it was the only...
I got Isai first round of singles, lost, then lost to DA Dave's brother. . I did make friends for many years though with the best 2 players from California for a good long time, and Chudat, who still loves us to this day and we love him too (no homo). This tournament was supposed to be the ultimate showdown between EC and WC, since Ken and Isai showed up to challenge Azen and his crew. Little did everyone know it was only the beginning...
Now, the lines had been drawn. Game Over had come and gone, the WC were the champions for the moment. Soon everyone was wanting to make their mark as a national tournament host. Not long after GO, the Ship of Fools posted about a tournament in Indiana, and soon interest was abound from all over the country. Lucky me, my uncle lives about 20 minutes from there, so attending MELEE-FC is no issue for me.
It was about this time that SWF crashed for a week or two again and wiped out my old account. I recreated it in February 2004, as it says, and got readmitted to the MBR (it didn't become the SBR until Brawl was announced). I had a hand in some stage bannings (Fourside and Great Bay stand out to me, and Joe was the primary supporter of removing DK Rap from the stages) and some other things. I was never fully in support of the items ban, on principle more than anything, but you can't argue with explosive capsules that you couldn't turn off except for by getting rid of all items. Most stage bans I supported, btw, had to do with excessive camping tactics and none of this "random" crap you see get tossed around all the time. Learn to deal with hazards IMO and you'll be a better player in the long run. I was really sad to see MK2 go, it was one of my favorites.
Twiggy began hosting little fests/tourneys around this time. I went to most, and though he usually seemed to beat me in friendlies I'd more often than not eek out the win in our sets.
Just before FC, there was an announcement about a travelling tournament event called the V-Games, which was supposed to be structured similarly to what MLG became later. It was a circuit event, going to many cities and holding Qualifier events, and the winners were sent to LA for a finale. It was funny to see SWFers coordinating the events they attended (the DA crew went all over the northeast so as many of them could get spots as possible). GAWes came here to win alongside Bobby, who won in Atlanta the week before. In probably some of my hardest matches, I beat Twiggy, Josh, GAWes, lost to Bobby, beat Joel, beat GAWes again, and then had to switch off Sheik to fight Bobby in the grand finals, where I found out that Falcon could just knee his way to victory against Samus. NC Falcon got kicked up another notch. W00t. After that I rarely beat Bobby again after that, lol.
FC came, and it was a total blast. I teamed with Darkrain, and we taught each other lots of cool Falcon tricks. I taught him how to ff nair just right so you could double hit and still get a grab in, and I think the rest concerning Darkrain is history. Bobby was there with Chris aka Gym Falcon, though he wasn't called that at the time, and he played Falco and Jiggs. The Kishes invented the crew battle there, and I was in with the WC giants so I was on Ken's crew. It was Ken, Isai, and two really cool Canadians from GameFAQs, Mike and Jarrod. We'd known of each other from our days at GF. So it was cool to hang out with those guys at FC. It was there that I really gained my appreciation for Isai's playing. You all newer people have seen but a giant's shadow of times past. In the championship match, against the East Coast (DA and H2YL) crew, I got tossed at DA Wes who did quite a number on me and Jarrod and was finally dispatched by Mike. Mike was then dispatched by Oro with one stock left, then all we had was Ken and Isai against Oro's stock, Husband, Wife, DA Dave, and Azen. This is where legends are born. Isai destroyed Oro's Samus in less than 20 seconds, taking only 10%. Next was Husband's Marth, and I'm pretty certain he didn't take a stock from Isai either. He may have. But Isai's Falcon was too good. He plowed through the Newlyweds with considerable ease, and down to 2 stock was faced with his toughest challenge yet: the EC's best Falco. Cruise was quite the blessing, and with a lonely stock remaining Isai set himself against Azen's Marth. He managed to take one and nearly got another before he was taken down, but the damage was done. Isai had taken 11 stock against one of the best assembled crews of the entire East Coast. Ken's 4-2 advantage over Azen was more than sufficient to win us the tournament. But Isai was the hero that day. Later that night hanging out at the Iggy's house was the funniest drive-through experience I've ever had. 2 cars went to Wendy's with orders for a house full of smashers. $40+ was the size of the order in the first car. Our car piled an additional $65 on top of that. All told, nearly $110 of food from Wendy's ended up on Iggy's kitchen counter. It was utter pandemonium and hilarity.
The fall passed somewhat uneventfully for me, though not in terms of quantity. October saw the arrival of Munkey and Adams and the rest of their crew. Many more smashfests at Twiggy's house. We got some Mississippi people to come up once, along with Mike G. at about this time. So I finally met the best Peach I've ever played. I also met MookieRah then, and Moogle the SSB prodigy. Mike told us we needed to go to Smash Aid 4 that December, a year after the first one and I hadn't been to the ones in between. So again Bobby and I (with Gym this time) piled into the Cougar and headed down I-85 to that awesome old school and those cool people. We picked up Mike G on the way, and somehow we got onto the subject of Bobby leaving the next week for a vacation in Australia. He'd been chatting with some smashers down there, and they were ecstatic to meet a real American smasher. Their prodigy Emily (Kupo) and I began talking online a lot after that. But we had a blast again at SA IV, and plans were quickly underway for a 5th. This was the time we had a NC FL crew battle with our friends from Gainesboro, and somehow pulled out the win. Go NC.
Somewhere in here I met Karn and Malk and (which one was with you guys, was it THO or Knorr?) and hung out with them at NC State with Bobby some. It was hard not actually living in Raleigh when all your friends do.
Pretty soon, through all the chatting with Emily and talking with Wes about SAV, I decided to convince them all to arrange their plans to coincide with one another. So that May (2005), Em came to Raleigh and hung out with Bobby and me (I took the week off work) and then over the weekend we all drove down to Atlanta and had a tournament basically just for her. She did well. She got 3rd IIRC, and won teams I think with Mike G, against the Newlyweds, who were a dominant EC force at the time. Around this point was the beginning of the FL debacles, with the Miami people thinking they were hot stuff and no one liking them. So Husband was all high and mighty about beating the FL people, not aware that these weren't the same FL people buy my friends from Gainesville. Things went pretty rough for the guys from MD, though they barely eeked out wins, they were very close matches. This was just about the end for my FL friends, sadly. They were a little older than I, and schooling will call. But altogether, apart from the sheer magnitude of the events of the FC tournament series, this was the funnest week I had playing Smash ever. I still talk to Em a bit.
My interest in the game was beginning to wane, but I still had one last shindig to make it to. A month after SAV, I took the bus to Baltimore to hang out with the Newlyweds and attend Gettin' Schooled 2. I saw Ken, Isai, JV, Eddie, Wes (who I managed to take a match off in the tournament!!!), Azen, Chu, and all the super cool Texas people. It was a good time. I did quite well in the swiss format. I almost made the top 32, I was pretty proud of myself. Look up the montage from Bach on youtube, it's a pretty good representation of the fun we had there.
This is nearly the end of my tale. Just before SAV I met the girl I'd begin dating at the end of that summer, who I've been with now for nearly 3 1/2 years, and going to tourneys for money just wasn't as feasible to me as it had been before (it never really was much in the first place, but I love hanging out with people). I more or less dropped out from everything almost entirely. I don't remember if I made Smash Aid 7, I don't think I did. I would still hang out with people from time to time, like Twiggy and Adams and such, but I didn't do much until I met L0Zr in March of '06, and even that was a one time thing. The beginning of the new era, the death of the old. It wasn't until last year (almost 2 now) that I started hanging out with Ali, when I decided to go to FCD (which was a blast) and see all the people again. Shortly after that I went to Smash Aid X, to see Wes off to England, and saw Adam again and decided to get back into the local scene, coming up to Raleigh again or just smashing like old times. You all know where you came into the story, but this is my part of it. So there, I hope you all enjoyed reading this, I certainly enjoyed writing it all.
