Junebug at Low Tier City 4. Photo Credit: @arjunebug via Twitter.
It takes a large amount of dedication to keep on going, despite the odds. For the Project M community, it's this very dedication that has kept them together, even with the development team's disbandment.
The MD/VA region's Arjun "Junebug" Rao is one of competitive PM's heavy-hitters and is currently #1 on the PM Championship Circuit (PMCC) leaderboard. A stalwart of the title through and through, he is not only known for his in-game talents but also his role in the community as a figurehead in this day and age of the game.
Smashboards' Matt "Playonsunday" James recently had the chance to talk with Junebug about PM at EVO and Super Smashcon, the PMCC and the overall state of the scene.
Project M at EVO. Photo Credit: @admiralpopi via Twitter.
Sunday: So June, let’s get the fun question out of the way - you just got back from Las Vegas, how was EVO and the PM Championship Circuit event there?
Junebug: My EVO experience was great. Vegas is a great city to have fun in, albeit expensive. I enjoyed watching finals and hanging out with my crew and friends and the tournament was fun as well.
While I didn't win, I was happy with my performance against Marshall, LLOD, IPK, Sosa, Hyperflame, and other top PM players. It’s unfortunate I didn't get to play Hungrybox though. We always buster out before meeting in bracket.
S: Speaking of the PMCC, how have you been enjoying this inaugural season of the circuit?
J: The circuit has been a great experience for me and the PM community. Before the circuit, I hadn't accrued that many losses. Now people are hungry for the throne and the W. It's a good motivator for making me practice. Huge shout outs for the national PM community getting together to do something like this. Circuits are super rare in the Smash community these days.
Huge shout outs to the Big Balcony, which was the result of SoCal's Balcony tournament organizers and a community fundraiser which rose around $2,000 for flying players out, equipment, and more. The PM community has shown to be strong even then the game is "dead". The game only dies if nobody wants to play it.
The current PMUnderground tier list.
S: Right before this weekend PMUnderground released the second version of their tier list, which saw Diddy Kong climb to #1 on the list while Ganondorf fell 4 spots deeper into the C tier. Have anything to say about these changes?
J: My tier list looks widely different than the regional voter tier list submitted by Reslived. I think the only reason Diddy is number one is my success with him, therefore his amazing toolkit has been seen, and the fact that many people do not know how to play against him effectively.
Before people started using his item game against him, I had Diddy as number one as well. But characters like spacies (especially Wolf), Peach, Mewtwo, and others have access to amazing options while holding a banana. If a player is to get his item game on the level of the Diddy, Diddy drops in terms of how powerful he is.
However, he still has all the tools of a top tier character. I won't argue against that much. The meta has much to develop.
Ganon is so bad. He has so many tools, yet at the end of the day, he's sluggish with linear mixups. I may have to drop him for a better character, but he is just too fun.
S: Super Smash Con 2016 is coming up, and I’m sure the community wants to know if PM will be there in force like it was last year. Have any news for us?
J: Super Smash Con has been nice enough to let us host a PM panel and side event again this year.
The panel this year will focus on the current PM scene, the preservation of the game in an era of eSports, and how the engine of PM feels as compared to Smash and various other games.
But I'm sure many are wondering about the PM side-event. Last year, it ended up being a spur-of-the-moment thing, with Slikvik organizing it at the last minute. This year, I ended up sending out a pre-registration a few weeks prior to this event.
Because of the limited amount of space we'll be having, I had to cap the event around 144 entrants. We need people to bring CRTs and setups as well, so this event is gonna be super grassroots. I'm hoping it goes well.
S: Looking past Super Smash Con, what do you think the future holds for the PM Community?
J: The meta of PM has actually continued to develop at an impressive rate. I am very happy it didn't die after the development team disbanded, if only because I like PM a lot.
I started playing Project M with my friends in the community. Now most of them have moved on to other Smash titles and eSports. Regardless of legality, I stayed because it's my favorite Smash game by far, and it gave me an opportunity to succeed and enjoy the work I was putting in. When all my friends are making 6 figures of e-sports money, maybe I'll regret my decision, and maybe sometimes I do. Luckily the community has been awesome, and some people are really trying to help it grow from a grassroots level.
PM is definitely the black sheep of the community now. I guess I'm used to it, since I used to play Brawl. At the minute, PM has a decent home on Hitbox. The only people playing the game now are extremely dedicated to it. There are ways we can get other smashers involved though. I'm trying to get involved in YouTube and I'm streaming on both Twitch and Hitbox these days just to show people the game. I don't care about partnering up on either. I just want people to see how cool the game is. My channel could get copyright struck on Twitch, but that would be fine, since I'm not partnered and I have nothing invested in it.
One can hope about a day where the companies behind Brawl don't care about a fan mod. Alas, Japanese intellectual property law is fickle, and I don't see it happening in the near future. However, Nintendo has shown to been having a questionable PR regarding intellectual properties. Maybe there is hope for a change of heart.
I just want people to know that the community isn't dead yet, and it has been working hard to keep the passion for the game around. I know most smashers don't care about PM, but feel free to check it out. I'll be playing as long as myself and the community are still kicking.
I think the community has done a lot incredible things during hardships. We have a lot of dedicated players but right now we need to work on grassroots growth and keeping the interest in the game alive.
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For more coverage on PM, Super Smash Con and more, stay tuned on Smashboards.
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