Let's talk about our attitudes and Captain Awesum

[Tobi_Whatever]

Personally, his play style is very cheap and boring to watch. I'll admit I did take part in the "residentsleeper spam" in the chatroom, for which I regret. That being said, he shouldn't be harassed like that, especially during an event as big as EVO. People really should be kicked out like previously mentioned.

Now I know this isn't about StaticManny, but can we talk about his sonic for a quick moment? I found watching his matches to be even worse than Cpt.A's. He just spindash-shield, spindash shield. Hold it down for forever, then release it. I literally had to mute the stream and go watch youtube until it was over, while I could handle cpt. Just imo.

Same problem in blue (heh).
As a player I can respect them, as a viewer I cannot.
I am 100% against harassment, but viewers have a right to complain.
Pleasing the crowd is part of a "sport". The crowd is what makes the game and the players big.
If you don't want to please the crowd, at least deal with their discontent (to a certain level).
Silencing the viewers won't help. It will just reduce the viewer count.

 

[Sodo]

The most surreal moment was his set against Larry Lurr. It was a very slow match in which Larry struggled greatly to approach this wall but was keeping pace. Larry gets a lead in game three and then the crowd starts their "time him out" chant, hilarious hypocrisy given their apparent incredible opposition to time-out tactics otherwise! They just decided they really hated Captain Awesum and wanted to see him lose in whatever way possible. In short, a large number of the people there worked together as a group to make Captain Awesum feel unwelcome and unappreciated in the community. It was like watching stream chat play out except in person; I didn't think people in real life would ever actually act that way.

I personally don't have an issue with his playstyle. He is the one competing, who am I or anyone else to tell him how to play? He played within the ruleset and did his best to win. If he brought every match to 0:00 and found his way through Grand Finals, then so be it and everyone else should "git gud". As a spectator I would hate it but thankfully this strategy doesn't exactly lend itself to winning at high levels of play.

On the other hand, he knew this was coming. He knows exactly what this playstyle entails, especially from a spectator's standpoint. It's analogous to any pro sport. Some teams will score early and "park the bus" (play heavily defensive) afterwards to hold a lead.

I don't agree that people should be heckling him, but the "time him out" chant was hilarious. It was just deserts, the perfect ironic end to the set. He acted salty after it, too, which didn't help his image any. This is a competition, and as a competitor you have to tune the crowd out.

Like I said, I don't think anybody should be making personal attacks on him for his playstyle, that's cringe-worthy and makes the community seem childish. I don't know what Captain Awesum thinks about this whole thing but to be honest if I was him I wouldn't care what some random choch at a tournament thinks of me, I came here to make money.

 

[Big-Cat]

I'm definitely familiar with this sort of thing. When I played Street Fighter 4, I played El Fuerte, and my scene HATED me for it even going for personal attacks. Saying I was just guessing and "not playing Street Fighter" were the typical things I got. Never mind that my opinions for upcoming games were generally insulted with things like "I don't think you understand."

The primary issue here is what is considered acceptable play. My scene did not like I was playing an okizeme heavy character as to them, guessing was not a skill. Here, any kind of defensive play is despises. You even have people trying to play defensive characters aggressively when it's not in their design to do so. Ironically, these are the same little ****s that can't bring themselves to take risks and play the safest characters possible. They want things to be aggressive, but they're too big of chickens to actually practice what they preach. They already have tunnel vision for what is offensive or defensive play. The number of people with this perspective is just hurting the meta. No one wants to take risks so the likes of Sheik will continue to rise until enough people actually grow a pair.

Same problem in blue (heh).
As a player I can respect them, as a viewer I cannot.
I am 100% against harassment, but viewers have a right to complain.
Pleasing the crowd is part of a "sport". The crowd is what makes the game and the players big.
If you don't want to please the crowd, at least deal with their discontent (to a certain level).
Silencing the viewers won't help. It will just reduce the viewer count.

This is a game, not a spectator sport. If playing "lame" is what it takes to win, then you better ****ing do it.

 

[Gibbs]

There's an interesting thing that happens in the smash community with its amateur/grassroots origins conflicting with its new status as a spectator event. The amount of vitriol and emotion we see in smash spectators is only a fraction of the toxicity that exists in say the NFL fanbase. Pro sports however have a clear amateur-pro divide that smash lacks. Professional athletes are held to an entirely different standard of conduct than fans and talk radio hosts are. The emotional narratives of say the RedSox vs Yankees or the Pats vs Jets are an important part of filling the seats at stadiums and driving the viewership numbers that keep the whole enterprise financially afloat. The vitriol that we're rightly condemning here is actually just a somewhat normal affect of an emotionally engaged spectator fanbase. I mean just look at how many comparisons are being made between smash and pro wrestling and how this is a good thing. If smash is really the WWE then the comments against Captain Awesome, the personal attacks and jeering are par for the course.

The main problem with smash going down this road is that a very large portion of tournament spectators are also amateur tournament contenders. So people who are on the wrong side of the emotional spectator aren't professionals who are paid to be above the jeers of spectators, but are people who are being bullied by their peers.

As our scene grows the only way I see to mitigate this issue is for there to be some sort buffer installed between spectator and competitor on the national stage. Maybe something like a players league or association that handles seeding and codes of conduct. Something like, if you want to be seeded at a national and be ranked? Then you must agree to this standard of conduct. If you won't agree but still want to compete, then win your way through quals that are open to non registered players.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

This is a game, not a spectator sport. If playing "lame" is what it takes to win, then you better ****ing do it.

Games live and die with their viewer count.
I absolutely agree that you should play to win though, no matter how.

 

[STiCKYBULL3TZ]

I was sitting in the crowd during the Larry Lurr set. After being eliminated from pools in Losers Finals to a different Villager using the same tactic, of course I was completely for Larry. It's a frustrating and very stressful fight but I understand the play-to-win mindset. Actually my mindset against that strategy is now to time them out.

About the attitude, everyone was cheering for Larry. A few people were heckling giving a sarcastic "You're so good!" or a more direct "You're so bad". Whatever. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You're playing a very campy and defensive style in front of tons of people. That's bound to happen.

There was one guy tho who was outright insulting Captain Awesum. Saying derogatory things and really trying to put a real hurt on him. THAT'S NOT OK. It's one thing to heckle and jeer but it's another thing when you're being straight up disrespectful. Hearing it made me pretty disappointed and I felt bad for Captain Awesum. We as a community need to check ourselves and put ourselves to higher standard.

 

[lijero13ss]

Aka lets just ban customs.

 

[LightLV]

Everyone hated Zero players in Marvel because of how cheese he is. People hated ChrisG for his lame morrigan abuse in Marvel. People hated Luffy for his SUUUPER lame Rose abuse in SF4. People hate Hungrybox for his absurdly boring camp with jigglypuff in Melee. People hated what they saw Elena do in this year because of how lame and cheap her playstyle was. People hate Diddy, Rosalina, and Shiek players in Smash4, the same as they hate spaceanimals in Melee, because they're just objectively better characters than the rest of the cast.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. When the game lets you do lame garbage tactics and win, it is entirely the game's fault. This is why I don't understand the hate against "tier-whores". How can you possibly hate them? If the developers let it happen, they're just doing what they're supposed to as competitive players. Any faults with Smash 4's metagame are, ultimately, entirely the fault of the balancing team.

As for the player...if he can't take the kiddyhate the Smash community throws, i don't think he needs to be competitive.

 

[BlueBirdE]

Everyone has their own play style. I respect Capt awsum for doing what he thought was best to win. He took a relatively defensive character and pushed the limits of what he can do. The game gave him the ability to do that. Not every character is meant to be flashy and rushdown or atleast played 'optimally' in that regard.

 

[Gibbs]

As for the player...if he can't take the kiddyhate the Smash community throws, i don't think he needs to be competitive.

The dude was/is being blasted for personal stuff in person and across all social media platforms associated with smash for the way he plays the game. This example goes pretty far beyond the usual stream monster abuse. Saying "LoL kiddyhate you should quit" is super uncool when there are maybe only 4-5 other smashers who have gotten this kind of bad press before. This isn't normal and we should do our best to discourage it as a community.

I know pulling the "think of the children" card is lame, but smash's target demographic is quite a bit lower than other esports. Would you tell an 8-11 year old smasher to quit competitive smash because he couldn't take the harassment, or would you try to encourage/enforce a different standard of conduct among competitors.

 

[Thinkaman]

No one is suggesting that we police spectators. It's okay to root for someone.

We're just suggesting the audacious wish that it would be nice if the community followed non-scrubby play-to-win attitudes and didn't attempt to make certain players feel unwelcome at events.


I dislike Sonic's playstyle and almost always root against anyone playing him. But I would NEVER boo them or attempt to discredit or disrespect their successful play and valid wins, or do anything that could remotely suggest that I don't want them at my events or in my community.

 

[ToadsterOven]

People like that who have nothing nice to say shouldn't say anything at all. It's one thing if it's coming from Twitch chat as everyone knows its a breeding ground full of ****posting, trolling, flaming, spamming of memes/emoticons, etc.

It's another thing entirely when you play the game the way you want to play it doing what works best for your playstyle during a tournament with a live audience and you have to put up with jerkwads in the audience either booing you, insulting you, or worst case, chanting MELEE during the grand finals of your smash game of choice. *cough* APEX 2015 *cough*

Some days I like this community. Other days, I want to reach through my computer screen and strangle some of the idiots I come across.

 

[Gunla]

Not even gonna lie I was rooting for Awesum because I do like Villager play

This goes along with what Hbox did as well (develop a strategy to counter the meta and play it very well). People have used Static Manny and Awesum as scapegoats almost for customs (I think that's an issue for an entirely other day, but something to note because it's still insulting) despite Top 32 being mostly devoid of customs outside of John Numbers and a few others. Smash 4 is naturally more defensive, customs or not; remember how people chewed out Dabuz at Apex for this set? It's very engraved in my brain; it wasn't the hype option but people wailed on him afterwards on Twitter (let alone the game as a whole due to the events of Apex), and he got 2nd.

When you play at high levels, you're going to eventually go and do what you have to do if you're aiming to place in the money, and whether that's sticking to the top tiers or going and doing something radical yet effective, people will do it. Whether it's interesting to watch or not is another issue; at the highest level, it's not as much as a spectator sport anymore because a lot is on the line. Here's an example.

Player A knows that they could shut down Player B with an incredibly different strategy (that may not be interesting to watch or fight against, but is very successful) and it's Grand Finals of a massive tournament. However, he knows that if he goes with something common (IE: A high tier/top tier character), he would potentially not win. The difference between 1st and 2nd is thousands and thousands of dollars. The answer is pretty clear to me; Player A would stick with the different strategy and secure an easier victory. It's about playing to win at that point, and while most players have that mentality, not every person is committed that far in.

When people don't respect or like a player's playstyle, that's okay. Not everyone is going to get along. But when people go around and follow him just to boo him and heckle him, that's not acceptable at all. Harassment is something that we don't accept on Smashboards, and I certainly would hope that it's not tolerated in person, either. Yes, the other games of FGC have this kind of issue, but that shouldn't just mean we should sweep it under the rug. When a bigger issue arises and it amounts to more than just rooting for another player, then it becomes an problem that should never be treated as something light.

 

[Ninj4pikachu]

Capt awesome mearly played the game, and because of that he was chastised in a manner that would be unacceptable at any other sporting event. Smash 4 is a more defensive game, and with that will come more defensive players. Long gone are the days when mearly hyper offense was all it took to win. This isn't something we can change. We are going to have to accept that style of play, because no rule we impose can really stop it.

 

[Gibbs]

No one is suggesting that we police spectators.

While streamchat is a lost cause I think we should police spectators to a certain extent. For instance having a segregated PG/E-Sports only stream and one with much laxer moderation. I think something like this was done at Apex, with decent success.

There are other competitive communities of all sizes that are able to enforce either implicit or explicit conduct standards. On the small side competitive Go (the ancient board game, not CS) has heavily moderated and kid friendly online servers and match making(KGS), and large (by board game standards) national events that go off well every year with out death threats or tons of bad karma. On the bigger side look at tennis or golf. These sports are much bigger than smash but if you heckled a golfer at the US Open like HBox was boo'd at EVO you'd be removed or shamed by everyone around you.

It bothers me when people just shrug and say "that's just the nature of the beast, smashers will always be this way". We can insentivise basic human decency among smashers and we can apply social pressure to those who refuse to grant even the smallest amount of respect to their peers. We don't have to give up the hype, trash talk, emotional narrative, or viewing experience to have a tiny bit of empathy and restraint.

 

[Teshie U]

Why is the Smash community so salty about characters and playstyles that "dig in and defend" but no one wants to complain about the top tiers essentially circle camping in every game?

Villager just wants to fight you in a certain place where he built his home while characters like sheik, diddy and sonic literally avoid confrontation.

Same goes for Rosalina.

 

[Gibbs]

no one wants to complain about the top tiers essentially circle camping in every game?

I believe that's what they call the neutral game, or footsies. To call it essentially circle camping makes me think that you haven't played many 1v1s on Kongo Jungle 64 or Hyrule Temple.

 

[Rikkhan]

If were are just talking about booing, twitch chat and some salty comments on twitter then I think people are too sensitive, this is something ALWAYS happens in every single competitive game, other things beyond that are not cool and I agree.

 

[shinyskarmory]

Everyone hated Zero players in Marvel because of how cheese he is. People hated ChrisG for his lame morrigan abuse in Marvel. People hated Luffy for his SUUUPER lame Rose abuse in SF4. People hate Hungrybox for his absurdly boring camp with jigglypuff in Melee. People hated what they saw Elena do in this year because of how lame and cheap her playstyle was. People hate Diddy, Rosalina, and Shiek players in Smash4, the same as they hate spaceanimals in Melee, because they're just objectively better characters than the rest of the cast.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. When the game lets you do lame garbage tactics and win, it is entirely the game's fault. This is why I don't understand the hate against "tier-whores". How can you possibly hate them? If the developers let it happen, they're just doing what they're supposed to as competitive players. Any faults with Smash 4's metagame are, ultimately, entirely the fault of the balancing team.

As for the player...if he can't take the kiddyhate the Smash community throws, i don't think he needs to be competitive.

Why are we throwing out kiddyhate at all? The primary purpose of the tournament is a bunch of people getting together and playing to win. Sure, there's streaming and spectating too, but the player experience and competitiveness of the event is more important than the value of the tourney as a spectator event.

Captain Awesom is fully within his rights to run his Villager camping strategy at any tourney where it is allowed, just like Zer0 is allowed to play whatever the best character is in every game he touches and Armada is allowed to laser spam. All strategies not banned by the rules or against the spirit of competition are deserving of equal respect.

Nobody has to like the Cpt's strategy, nor do they have to cheer for him if they don't want to. Root for his opponents if you want. Just keep insults and personal attacks out of it. He's playing to win just like you are, even if he's doing it a different way.

 

[Sodo]

Captain Awesom is fully within his rights to run his Villager camping strategy at any tourney where it is allowed, just like Zer0 is allowed to play whatever the best character is in every game he touches and Armada is allowed to laser spam. All strategies not banned by the rules or against the spirit of competition are deserving of equal respect.

Nobody has to like the Cpt's strategy, nor do they have to cheer for him if they don't want to. Root for his opponents if you want. Just keep insults and personal attacks out of it. He's playing to win just like you are, even if he's doing it a different way.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

If were are just talking about booing, twitch chat and some salty comments on twitter then I think people are too sensitive, this is something ALWAYS happens in every single competitive game, other things beyond that are not cool and I agree.

Except we aren't.

And reading the thread should have made that clear.

 

[Hippieslayer]

IMHO people's attitude towards the game in general has deteriorated since the brawl days. You didn't see this kind of vitriol directed towards MK and IC players, both characters arguably just as cheese if not more than Custom Villager, difference being top players played those characters. Its okay to hate customs because top players don't want them. Sheep. In any case boing and biases are always gonna be there, certain stuff will just get hated on. People who throw personal insults should be dealt with by to's however, it really shouldn't be that hard to know where the limit goes. Captain Awesome is like 16 year olds if what Max Ketchum said is right, if you need to yell personal insults at some 16 year old you kinda need to start questioning yourself.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

I don't see anything wrong with the 'time him out' chant. It's funny when someone who was trying to win via time out ends up losing on time. People like the irony of it. It's not necessarily malicious.

Booing is also perfectly fine, although I would never actually do it. Harassment is a problem and that's where the line should be drawn.

All strategies not banned by the rules or against the spirit of competition are deserving of equal respect.

I think that's going a bit far.

Personal attacks on the guy are unwarranted, but that doesn't mean we need to respect his playstyle. It is cheap, legal or not. I respect his skill, but not the way he chooses to play.

This is a game, not a spectator sport. If playing "lame" is what it takes to win, then you better ****ing do it.

Sure, it's not a sport, but the competitive scene would be practically non-existent if not for spectators.

 

[Thinkaman]

Booing imo is on the line. It's usually hard to separate booing the action versus booing the person, and booing action is generally scrubby in the first place.

Again, it all comes back to "does this make people feel unwelcome in our community?"

 

[Gibbs]

Sure, it's not a sport, but the competitive scene would be practically non-existent if not for spectators.

Isn't smash supposed to be like the exact counterexample to this claim?

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Isn't smash supposed to be like the exact counterexample to this claim?

Yeah. My point remains, but I admit that it was kind of......pointless. All of the spectators are also players, so there being players but no spectators is a somewhat unrealistic scenario. Still, if no one watched any Smash games, then there wouldn't be tournaments. That's all I'm saying.

 

[neohopeSTF]

Yeah. My point remains, but I admit that it was kind of......pointless. All of the spectators are also players, so there being players but no spectators is a somewhat unrealistic scenario. Still, if no one watched any Smash games, then there wouldn't be tournaments. That's all I'm saying.

Not really. They might not be streamed but people would still play in tournaments if they could.

 

[Gibbs]

There probably wouldn't be EVO sized events, but there would still be tons of tournies. Look at chess or GO or well anything competitive that would never in a million years hit it big on twitch.

 

[shinyskarmory]

Personal attacks on the guy are unwarranted, but that doesn't mean we need to respect his playstyle. It is cheap, legal or not. I respect his skill, but not the way he chooses to play.

I don't really understand what's "cheap" about his playstyle either. Sure, he's playing very defensively, but there's nothing inherently bad or "cheap" about defensive play.

Think of his ledge camping as attempting to cover the maximum number of your approach options, instead of trying to waste your time.

 

[Raijinken]

A few thoughts on this entire thread.

Sportsmanship and whatnot has always seemed like an issue in the Smash community to me. My very first tournament (aside from obvious bad TO issues) I left after my loss because my opponent openly mocked me mid-match and refused any sort of hollow sportsman statement or handshake. Call me a salty newcomer, but it turned me off the competitive scene for a very long time.

As for defensive strategies. That's how I tend, myself, and quite honestly, I still find it pretty boring to watch. I was cheering for Larry all three rounds despite him playing Sheik, but I was still pretty pleased that Awesum took a game off a character I consider borderline broken. I was also convinced Larry shouldn't have struggled had he used his specials better or swapped characters, but still. Even with a bias against pure camping (which is deep seated in my past despite my own shift towards defense to make up for my terrible aggro reflexes), I found the set enjoyable (moreso than Sanic vs Mario).

Awesum and Hungrybox were the only two matches I noted boos for. Wouldn't have surprised me if it had happened in Manny vs Ally, either, but I had lost interest in the stream due to that one. Booing isn't sportsmanlike, respectful, or even humanly decent. And, especially in a fighting game, it's really hard to differentiate between "booing the player and booing the play/character/strategy." Personally, I don't think there is one. But it's not just Smash or the competitive scene that has a general hatred of defensive play. My first time running 1322 Villager, I had suitemates who have negligible interest in Smash complaining that there was no way I could possibly be enjoying playing that way.

It's an issue, and it's pushed a few of my friends out of the Smash community, and has pushed me really close to leaving it, too. There's a lot of hypocrisy where players (regardless of actual skill or reputation) promote playing to win and playing with every tool you have (infinites, camping, top-tier-levels of power, being ZeRo), and with their ruleset-making hand still reflect a conflict of interest (if infinites and timeouts are both legal, stalling with an infinite has no logical reason to be banned). It's frustrating to see, and I have a hard time even wanting to convince my friends to stick around or become more active in the community when it's this bad.

Of course, I'm also so passive (personality-wise) and jaded (and through such, indirectly responsible) that I've given up on trying to fix the problem actively. I'd love to be proven wrong, but at this point I believe the only way for the problem to be fixed in anything approaching a reasonable timeframe is for an authority figure (TO, major sponsor, whoever) to come in and heavy-handedly deal with the issue, without discrimination. If that means the top player in a scene has to be banned from a tournament for months or life to get the point across, so be it. I think nothing less will solve the issue.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

But I would NEVER boo them or attempt to discredit or disrespect their successful play and valid wins, or do anything that could remotely suggest that I don't want them at my events or in my community.

Well, in a perfect world, you wouldn't ever have to. I'm not suggesting Captain Awesum played in such a way to intentionally create conflict or discredit a portion of the metagame, but this is by no means an unheard of scenario.

Some things aren't welcome in the community. The tricky party is finding out where to draw the line.

 

[Raijinken]

Well, in a perfect world, you wouldn't ever have to. I'm not suggesting Captain Awesum played in such a way to intentionally create conflict or discredit a portion of the metagame, but this is by no means an unheard of scenario.

Some things aren't welcome in the community. The tricky party is finding out where to draw the line.

As much as the idealist within me thinks this shouldn't be the case, this is completely true.

One does not walk into a room full of serious conservatives and start pushing hard for gun control, without being aware of the inevitable backlash, after all.

But in Smash, if you (or your game's) playstyle doesn't agree with the most-supported group in the room's, you're branded.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

IMHO people's attitude towards the game in general has deteriorated since the brawl days. You didn't see this kind of vitriol directed towards MK and IC players, both characters arguably just as cheese if not more than Custom Villager

Arguably? ICs killed you off basically any grab anywhere and had amazing setups that the top players were able to consistently pull out. Your only hope was to run away and camp them hard. And they weren't even the best character in the game. I wonder if anyone booing Awesum had actually been around during Brawl.

 

[Big-Cat]

Why is the Smash community so salty about characters and playstyles that "dig in and defend" but no one wants to complain about the top tiers essentially circle camping in every game?

Villager just wants to fight you in a certain place where he built his home while characters like sheik, diddy and sonic literally avoid confrontation.

Same goes for Rosalina.

Because the top tiers move. Villager doesn't have to as much.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

"No, you can't always be repetitive when you're turtling either. I hate to use this example but you don't see 3S players always AA with the same move with the same because of the possibility of it getting parried do you? Good offense would consist of baiting your opponent to either take a risk or force them to block and throw. Are you trying to say that skill level has nothing to do with how well someone plays on defense or that the level of skill between the players doesn't matter and turtle characters will still dominate? Either way, you're wrong. For the record, you aren't always at an advantage when you're blocking either. You have to consider how much meter your opponent is gaining and how much chip damage you want to take, how to get out of a corner and teching throws.

I'm not trying to berate you. I am just trying to show you that your way of thinking is wrong. Almost everyone that starts off playing fighting games has this mentality and continue being incredibly ignorant. Some never change. The Domination 101 articles were written so that things exactly like this wouldn't have to be addressed for the umpteenth time." -SRK user
I feel this is needed to be spread no?

 

[neohopeSTF]

Honestly, I feel booing isn't that bad. Personal attacks are one thing but booing is more of a crowd activity that is part of any live competition.

 

[Raijinken]

Honestly, I feel booing isn't that bad. Personal attacks are one thing but booing is more of a crowd activity that is part of any live competition.

I think it's fair to point out that, especially in game tournaments, it's actually extremely rare to get a widespread boo going (like Awesum and Hungrybox did). It's a part of the event, yes, but at least in my experience, it's less a personal attack (unless at a coach or a ref in sportsketball) than a general statement of distaste by one team or another. It's basically never the entire crowd siding against a single participant.

 

[Schnizzle Fits]

I think a large part of the problem on why he was attacked so hard was that this was EVO. This is Smash 4 biggest showing sice APEX. What people wanted to see/show was how the game has grown. The last thing we wanted to see was those rosa pacman timeout.

Due in part of how Brawl was perceived, the Smash 4 scene(or soul at this moment) doesn't want a slow game where timeouts are a viable option. Look what happened to SxT and how far JWong got on timeouts last EVO. It is damaging to the games image but heres the thing, hyper Villager camp only worked because not alot have dealed with it yet. Its like how people thought ROB was good early in Brawls life. Unless Villager mains pump out some 20GX people will learn how to deal with campy villagers.

Let's be serious here we knew someone was going to do it, we all knew the campy villager was coming and it was captain awesum. He must have known he'd get hate for this but maybe not this far. Sadly him being attacked beyond the game isn't too surprising for me. As I stated before Smash 4s image is on the line, and this was the worst fear some had. Because camp is universally hated in the FGC(That Killer Instinct match comes to mind) and how far he got doing it Smash 4 has its first villain.

 

[Remzi]

Disclaimer: It is never ok to heckle or attack a person based on the way that they choose to play the game.

But I think part of the disdain for Capt Awesum and this strategy in general is that quite frankly it is not a testament to a player's overall skill in Smash Bros. Capt Awesum in particular is a player who IMO, doesn't want to put in the work. He wants his results handed to him, and thats why he only uses custom Villager and custom DK, with the most primitive, abusive playstyles possible.

When forced to play either of those characters without the crutch that their respective custom moves provide, his results suffer immensely. I've personally played him in both formats (customs/no customs) and the disparity in his performance between the two is kind of what you'd expect- he doesn't have particularly good fundamentals and can't win against stronger players.

The fact of the matter is that, as of our current meta, the campy villager strategy provides good results with very little work. Its very easy to want to root against a player who takes that route. As fans of the game, we want to see hard working players who have fleshed out their characters in innovate ways win, not people who have literally only one decent facet to their gameplay that just happens to be difficult to deal with. I understand that most people just booed him because its boring to watch, but personally I just don't think his success is well deserved.

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, I don't have a problem with him for what he did/does, but he has made a conscious to take the easy, but in the long run less rewarding, path to good results. He should have expected from the start that he wouldn't get a warm welcome.

 

[Big-Cat]

Not his fault that the players couldn't adapt.