Ok, so I'm back from the tourney. I did not end up placing, and was disappointed by my performance, but I think it was a valuable learning experience. Here's a description of what happened, for all interested.
Firstly, the originally planned 3 game sets didn't end up happening because there were way too many entrants. There were 170 people there, and so they divided us into pools of 10 each. Each set consisted of 1 3-stock, 5 minute match, all randoms, so no counterpicking due to time constraints.
Match 1: A Falco called 34 on Yoshi's Island. I personally hate Yoshi's Island, and he ended up 2 stocking me, although I came back a little in the end. I'd lost the first two stocks in his first stock, and then took it out and racked up a good 90+ dmg on his second.
Match 2: A Link called Animus. I essentially suicided on one life, I forget what I did, but I killed myself with only 12% on me. I ended up losing by a stock, but it could've been a close match.
Match 3: A wolf called Cloud Wolf. I ended up beating him, nothing extremely notable about this match.
Match 4: I played against Dark Pch, as of course, Peach. He plays an incredible spacing game. I zoned him fairly well, but when it came down to getting a kill, I had serious problems. He ended up beating me.
Match 5: A Falco called D1. I decided to try and use sonic, since my first match against Falco hadn't gone well. It was a bad idea. I ended up being 3-stocked hard.
Match 6: Edit: I remember who it was against. It was a Lucario. I ended up losing because I choked at the end. I had a good sized 1-stock lead, and I ended up losing VERY stupidly at the end.
Match 7: A Marth (whose name I do not remember). This was my most frustrating match. I had ANOTHER 1-stock lead, and in the last life, he tippered me THREE times in a row. And then, as the time was counting down, I was at 90%, he was at 120%, and we had 5 seconds left. I start trying to dodge him, and I focus too much on dodging, and he punishes a whiffed airdodge with his fourth tipper of the last life and kills me in the last SECOND (The announcer had already said 1). This match made me want to cry.
Match 8: A Falco (whose name I do not remember). I stuck with Samus this time, and won.
Match 9: A Marth (whose name I do not remember). I ended up winning by two stocks.
Final score: 3 Wins, 6 Losses >.<
So what I've learned from this experience:
1. Counterpicks are important. One 3-stock match is not enough to give you a chance, if you play badly the first round, which I did a fair amount.
2. DO NOT CHOKE. I got nervous twice, and lost two matches that by all means, I should have won, and one that was questionable as to the outcome. Definitely need to work on keeping myself calm and focused on the match and NOT killing myself.
3. Stop rolling. I know this is common knowledge, but it's still one of my habits. I HAVE to stop doing this. I got punished way too many times today to continue doing it.
4. Use Airdodge--> Z-air instead of just Z-air against spammers. I was trading hits when I should have been the one hitting and not getting hit.
5. Figure out whether quicker U-tilt is more valuable or D-smash. I used to have my controls set so C-stick would tilt, which helped me use U-tilt, but I decided to switch to D-smash so that I could get people off of me more easily in close range. I definitely saw opportunities for U-tilt today, so I'm considering possibly switching back, but we'll see about this one.
Overall, I think it was a good experience, and I think next time I'll be able to at least make a mark on the scene. I did worse than I was hoping for, but better than I expected, so I think with some more practice I'll be able to become a force to be reckoned with in the near future.
PS: I'm not sure if it was him, but if it was, Atire is a jerk. I saw him earlier in the day, and I remembered his voice. He came over in the middle of my 6th match, and asked me if I was Samus while our match was going on. I turned over for a second to answer him (Which, granted, was my own stupid mistake) and got F-smashed by Marth, making me lose my first life. He then proceeded to say "I hope the other guy wins, cuz I'm the only good Samus in the city." I wanted to smack him. What a jerkface.
