Ok, it's time for me to make the post I've been wanting to make ever since SAM 1 happened, and now after attending a tournament after the one in San Antonio and after watching Apex, I feel like I can finally put my voice out there.
I believe I have lost the will to compete in Smash.
In order to help explain why I feel this way, I want to take you all back to our time with Brawl in TX.
It's no stranger to anyone that Gnes and Razer were a dominating force during nearly the entirety of Brawl's lifespan. It wasn't until HOBO 36 that I beat them both at the same tournament for the first time. One would think that I would of felt amazing for finally accomplishing such a feat that was considered to be almost impossible here in this state, and I did feel great at first.......but I always found myself looking back on that tournament. Something about that tournament changed the way I looked at Brawl from a competitive standpoint. Would you like to know what it was? It was because I didn't approach. I went in that tournament with the sole intention of camping these two until the timer was ready to give up. Some people may ask, "Well what's the problem with that? You're just playing to win." Let me tell you why this angers me.
Because they don't understand.
This is going to sound like the most elitist thing you will ever hear from me, but unless you have the results, you will not fully comprehend what is happening at the top level of play, even in Brawl. I believed that I finally became one of these players after that HOBO, and I even went on to prove this at my best performance at a Brawl tournament ever at SKTAR. But I learned of the terrible fate that was Brawl's future competitively for the player that "plays to win".
Now this is going to be a bit off-topic and me just trying to be less serious here, but for those of you that watched Gurren Lagann, do you remember when Simon learns from the Anti-Spiral about the Spiral Nemesis? That is EXACTLY how I felt at HOBO 36 that day. I learned that if I were to continue to play the way as I did (converting Spiral Energy into Camping), I would ultimately be the very cause of Brawl's death (turn the universe into a black hole AKA Apex 2014).
Basically, I felt like I took everything I learned about basics, fundamentals and anything else that makes Smash Brothers what it is.......and threw it all out the window. Every situation theoretically that could put me into a bad spot in Brawl was CURED by just not approaching. When I said that I felt great after winning that day, it's because I chose to IGNORE all of this for my own personal reasons.......that I could help bring life back into Brawl again by beating all of the Meta Knights with Lucario. But at what cost?
It's agreed by 99% of the Smash community that camping and timing out others is toxic and poisonous to any Smash game. You are not truly playing Smash the way it was meant to be played.......BY FIGHTING. Those players that make up the 1% do not care for the future of our game. They only think about themselves and how much money they can win. It's all about them. First place or bust. Do or die. Play to win or don't come home. Smash becomes a tool for them to use in order to get what they want. They only fun they get out of playing is in fact when they win. This is not how I want to play Smash 4.
I only bring this up with Smash 4 because of one problem: Diddy Kong. Playing against Denti's Diddy felt like I was confronting a fortune teller who looked into their crystal ball and said, "This is what it will all come down to. Do you wish to continue?". It was as though the Monado gave me a vision of the future of Smash 4. There is only one way to beat this character, and that is by camping. Dabuz came to the same conclusion shortly before Apex, and he went in with the intention of timing out Diddy, if it ever came down to it, and he played like this throughout the whole tournament, making every other non-Diddy suffer. And now he's being ridiculed for his slow play everywhere I go. I even saw posts that said they WANTED ZeRo to beat Dabuz, even if they were originally against ZeRo himself. What ever could this mean!? Here, let me give a hint for you:
SPIRALNEMESISSPIRALNEMESISSPIRALNEMESISSPIRALNEMESISSPIRALNEMESISSPIRALNEMESISSPIRALNEMESIS
I think RT said it best in one of his posts, that it becomes a lose-lose situation. Lose to Diddy? Ugh, he's so broken. Beat Diddy by camping? Ugh, you're so gay.
Now I understand that camping will always exist in some form or another even if Diddy was taken out of the picture. But I can already tell that this game has balance without him. I believe that there is a lot of potential for counterpicks against most of what we're seeing now. This is why I will always support Houston's and San Antonio's rulesets. I trust that they will deal with this problem correctly. I still question whether or not I want to travel to nationals like EVO, but it all depends on the ruleset and what happens with Diddy.
And to expand a little on the subject of our rulesets, I meant that playing against you guys (Houston/SA) is what keeps me in this game. We make 3 stocks look like it should be the standard. I don't think our matches ever go over 4 minutes. We're just THAT aggressive. Well, ok, maybe Zori's matches are a little too long.......
And OH MY GOSH this post was IMPOSSIBLE to type up. I feel like I can see a lot of contradictions in what I'm trying to explain, but I hope that's just me. I've NEVER been good at this kind of thing, but I hope you guys enjoy the long read nonetheless, lol.
