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Make Your Move 23; Moveset Contest! Top 50 posted! Congratulations everyone! 23 is dead; see you in 24 on Feb. 24th!

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
Friendly Top of Page Reminder

We extended the editing period deadline to 4th of January recently, this gives everyone a bigger window to improve their sets and get feedback. In addition, once this editing period is over, we'll move right to voting so be sure to get in some reading too! Have a great holiday break everyone!
 

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
757
Location
taco bell, probablyn't
It's that time again! That time where it's the end of the contest and you gotta prove you still have ideas for movesets as if anyone doubted your abilities to. This time around, I've got the standard preview pics but I've also written a document which explains my ideas for these characters. Feel free to use this for open inspiration but mostly I did this just to glimpse at how I'm imagining all of these. This is also not comprehensive as there are a few sets that are currently secret and being held closer to my chest.
















 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Rather than making a full-on doc, I decided to just do a few quick write-ups on the plans I'm most interested in making right now! As I said in the chat, I'm excited to see what you all make in the future, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do dreaming about the end results!

Eria the Water Charmer

Originally meant for 23 (and would've fit right in with the likes of Rufus), Eria fights alongside her familiar Jigabyte, summoning some generic WATER-attribute monsters (which work as lingering hitboxes with unique movement patterns) and controlling the field of battle with water currents that shove monster and foe alike to and fro. I put her on hold to think harder on her melee game and how her assorted tricks fit together, but I'm very serious about making her set and seeing it done after all the work put into her.


Witchcrafter Haine

Our very own Katapultar made a list of sets he'd have liked to see from me, and that's how Haine drew my eye. Managing to overlap a bit with the general feel of my Witchverse ocs and also connecting to Jodie Reynolds from way back in MYM 15, I can certainly see why- though she offers plenty to be excited about as her own set!

My current concept centers around her stylized magic needles and thread; while the specifics are still in early conceptualization, my thought is she can fire her needles as individual projectiles- which will then proceed to stop at their point of impact or the edge of their range, whichever comes first, pointing in the direction of the angled input. Once there, it will hover in place with a magic thread connecting it to Haine from wherever she is on stage, and Haine's attacks will generate secondary hitboxes that run down the length of the thread and shoot out of the needle's tip, meaning opponents must constantly mind her needles and take a moment to knock them out of the air to prevent a painful bullet hell!

If all four are deployed, as a bonus, Haine repeating the input to fire a needle will have the oldest fly towards what would be the end point of a new needle's range if it spawned from her spot, letting her attack from some very odd angles and set up delayed hitboxes that are mind-boggling to process; with a long enough thread, Haine can set up some very delayed versions of her hitboxes in projectile form, stringing together combos that have no business existing.

(Hm, note to self: attacks make a small weak flinching hitbox that races down the length of the thread, becomes the proper projectile when reaching the needle and fires from there? Would be a nice way to keep Haine from getting crazy up close by quintupling her hitboxes, which was my main concern of having to balance around.)


Mud Witch

Speaking of my Witchverse OCs, here's one from a new spinoff title! The penultimate boss of a fighting game set in the same universe, she's been stuck guarding a wish-granting artifact that destroyed her civilization for quite some time, and having had the chance to think things over about their actions... she's honestly quite bored. Free to travel the world after the characters destroy the artifact, she's indulged in her wanderlust, and found her way to Smash! ...well, Make Your Move, but same difference.

Mud Witch is something I've wanted to do for some time: a heavyweight terraforming character, a classic MYM concept that I've somehow never really gotten around to. Complete with MYM's most favorite construct, a boulder, she'll be bringing my take of the genre to the table. Her primary gimmick is the ability to harden her mud hitboxes to stone in order to make (somewhat frail) slopes and walls to launch and ricochet her projectiles and opponents alike off of, not to mention some Hothead-like effects like her mudpuppy minions and Forward Tilt projectile running up and down the sides of solid surfaces.

In particular, I'm taking the Forward Tilt I've used for a few of my Witchverse OCs before (because nobody's ever accused me of being original!) where her Forward Tilt creates a wave-like projectile whose shape and speed varies based on angle- long and short and fast angled down, tall and thin and slow angled up, and in between without. A three-in one projectile that can play at Ryu's famous fireball trap from Street Fighter, albeit less effective due to Smash's platformer fighter genre and the inherent mobility, this also has the obvious consequence of giving her three different angle slopes to roll projectiles off of from one input! She'll even take a bit from Bleak's mechanics and tricks with said chest-high wall as a means to attack from safety, though with the chief limitation that her camping game sucks due to a few intentional flaws in each ranged option- she's been stuck in one place for too long as it was, thank you very much!


OC Remix(es)

And while I'm on the topic of OCs, the protagonist of my dream JRPG has evolved a LOT from my MYM5 days, as have my skills at setmaking. With a much more developed picture of both the person and the world they inhabit, as well as what mechanics I want to introduce into the game, I've got a decent clue as to how I want to make her; thank Kat and his set for Ayesha Altugle for inspiring me on this one. She's the lowest priority and likely hardest to complete of this lot, but the idea of using Components to customize her moveset on the fly (including a full customizable Side Special!) and making trade-offs in your tools (losing her desperately needed attack speed as she makes her moves more complex) feels like a solid concept that hasn't been touched on for a bit. Maybe a little like a less extreme Elpizo from MYM 21 in a way?

She's not the only one, though. My improvement to making melee kits and the finer details of Smash has made me interested in remaking a few older OCs; while I currently have my two big ones on hold, Marin and Jodie, two others are ripe for remaking with the fighting game spin off serving as an excellent excuse to retool their kits: Garnet and Velvet. I've got quite a lot to work with here, and I'm as always grateful for people being so kind about my creations!


Secret Santa

This is a set I've considered writing once or twice before, but only after I found it perfectly fit my secret santa request did it light a fire in me; I'm going to do my best and ensure the best belated Christmas present I can for my recipient, and it's a set I'm VERY sure a lot of you will love to see, too!
 
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Katapultar

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
1,251
Location
Australia
Ditto US


Dragonmaid Laudry / Laundry Dragonmaid (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Laudry is the last of the 6 Dragonmaids that needs a moveset, US, and I having made the other 5 (Nasary, Parla, Chame, Tillroo, Hauskee) between ourselves over MYM22 and MYM23. While US is interested in doing Laudry so we each have 3 Dragonmaids under our belts, Laudry is arguably my favourite of the maids and many of US’s Witchverse/Yu-Gi-Oh characters come across as being sensible and competent compared to the clumsy maid, but I would certainly welcome a US Laudry set if inspiration struck.

Concept-wise, Laudry will follow in Chame’s dragonic footsteps in being a simple set, fitting with her simple, clumsy and inexperienced character. She would be a swingy superheavyweight - a small target in her human form, but clumsy and more inept at comboing than she’d like to be. She would be more comfortable in her powerful dragon form, but that makes her a huge target and there would be emphasis on that as Kupa did say this MYM that being a large character is the worst trait a character can have in Smash. She would also have a very powerful midair jump, but it turns her into a dragon on use so she has to be careful not to get gimped when she’s recovering.

Haven’t fully decided on Specials, let alone ones that take advantage of Laudry’s gimmicks, but I have a few ideas: a Down Special that drops a portable clothesline, you can hit it to propel yourself forwards with a wind hitbox, not intended for its original use of hanging clothes, an Up Special that propels you backwards with a watery breath - very powerful hitbox, but you have to cross-up the opponent with no protective hitbox - and a Neutral Special that maybe lets you carry a bunch of dirty clothes and run forwards with them as a hitbox. There’s all kinds of ways to interpret her dragon powers and laundry equipment, made all the more fun with a pretty silly and comical personality to work with.


Life Witch Aynul Hayat (Witchverse)

I have always wanted to do a set for Usershadow’s Witchverse. Aynul Hayat is my take on the original Marin game’s final boss, a girl modified into a mega-powerful chimera who awakens and is ultimately the cause behind the monsters and excess life energy running amok in the academy. Restored to her senses by Marin, she seeks to be of service to the world and wanders the land with Mairn’s mother to find her purpose, while getting the populus to accept her. Her lore is an attempt to bring a close to the lore of the Marin game, which pretty much has enough characters to have its entire boss roster filled in (Mint, Garnet, Idella, Velvet, Eleanor, Victoria, Dahlia). Her lore is a massive 5k dump that more than likely surpasses Liz Eird’s intro, don’t be surprised if this set ends up having a high word count.

Aynul Hayat is a super heavyweight (possibly bigger than Bowser) heavily inspired by Warlord’s Girimehkala set: a programmable Neutral Special that lets you input 3 other moves to create your own super custom Neutral Special, with coloured appendages that give players some indication of what move(s) she has programmed. Unlike the elephant, her moves aren’t super laggy to compensate so much as limited in coverage, also being jointed hurtboxes as she primarily attacks with tree-like appendages - F-tilt is a stab-like attack, and U-tilt would likely lack coverage like Sephiroth’s U-tilt, for instance. Up Special is a teleport that’s slow to start up, but has no end lag and the option to throw out a powerful and invincible burst, a nigh-unstoppable recovery that forces opponents to go off-stage to gimp Aynul Hayat - heavyweights tend to have a problem with being gimped, this teleport an attempt to fix that. You can also combine it with NSpec and even grounded attacks to cancel them by teleporting in midair, along with various other tricks. Some attacks can even true combo into others in an NSpec combination, like Jab > F-tilt or even into a Smash, with no shortage of tricks and using quicker moves to scare opponents with a certain NSpec combination to compensate for Aynul Hayat’s lack of coverage on her attacks.

I have always wanted to do my own take of a superheavyweight, as sets like the Primordial Darkness, Hugo and even skekUng proved that superheavyweights are REALLY satisfying if they’re pulled off well. The concepts, combined with the chance to do a meaningful Witchverse set to finish the Bubble Witch Marin lore make Aynul Hayat an OC I’m compelled to finish.


Kasumi Faren (Witchverse)

Another Witchverse OC, Kasumi is Naomi’s confident, outgoing and cheeky little sister who uses the image from Froy’s ranking image of Naomi Faren in MYM22. She’s one of the family members who goes missing during Naomi’s spin-off, as mentioned in Hina Merrel’s intro. Kasumi can be pretty annoying, but Naomi’s adventures make her realise how much her sister means to her, and the two reconcile at the end of the story. Like Aynul Hayat, her intro would be a lore dump, more or less my take on the Naomi spin-off and its final boss/ending, but as that game doesn’t have too many developed bosses I would probably have to modify parts of it.

Unlike her sister (and most Witchverse sets), Kasumi is a close-ranged fighter who, at the time of writing, doesn’t have any conventional projectiles. Her Side Special is a burst that leaves behind a watery clone of herself for one second, able to mimic an input similar to her sister and Hina, but creating a clone nerfs her already weak damage output. Like her sister, Kasumi would have a hard time against shields, which gets worse with nerfs, but she does have a few command grabs to help her get around this. Her Down Special creates a geyser that lets her stand on the side of it and attack and jump from different angles, like jumping sideways (her jumps are Falco-tier), using her clones to increase her geyser cap and even get a set-up where she can jump back and forth between a geyser. This is a concept I’ve always wanted to play around with, based on Naruto, and honestly I’m a little conflicted whether I should use the concept for a different set or whether using it on Kasumi means I can’t use it on another character as they would end up being same-y.


Kazuma Satou (Konosuba)

Konosuba is currently one of my favourite animes of all time, Kazuma is my favourite anime boy and the Katverse needs more male characters. Enough said. This is a series I've always wanted to do sets for, but most of the cast have very limited or restrictive powersets, or the spells some of the characters can do are scattered throughout their source material. The series does have a few fun villains with decent set potential, but it wouldn't feel right for them to be the first Konosuba characters to get sets, hence why the main character should be the one to introduce MYM to the wonderful and messed-up world of Konosuba.

Kazuma is a weak adventurer who dies often, but he's a jerk who uses his limited abilities creatively and bluffs his enemies into thinking he's stronger than he really is where possible. His Down Special, Drain Touch, is a command grab with one of 3 options: buff your magic attacks, buff your speed or drain the foe's shield, the foe not knowing which option you chose until you shield, use a magic attack or a buffed movement option, the key here being you can potentially trick the foe into thinking you drained their shield where you really boosted your magic, or vice-versa. His Side Special is an arrow projectile that puts Young Link's fire arrows to shame speed-wise, but you only have a limited stock that needs to be replenished, and his Up Special is a dynamite recovery from vol 9 of the light novel you can also invest in as a very powerful bomb at the cost of your recovery. And last but not least is Steal, his Neutral Special which gives him the option to steal his opponent's panties. As for the rest of the set, he has low KO power, but specialises in getting some very dirty and underhanded KOs, quite befitting of his character.

I don't expect this set to be among my best, as the concepts are a bit low-key, but I certainly want to make a set for Kazuma! I actually started a set for him a year ago, but I scrapped those ideas and glad I did, as he was having Dragonmaid-esque issues with excessive word count. It's good to change.


EDIT: Google doc containing more set plans!
 
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Almand

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 20, 2018
Messages
216
I tried to be as concise as possible with my own, but... Almand be Almanding, one of my weaknesses.

Either way, here we go!

They're in no particular order, just whatever popped into my head over the while. Some are more developed than others, some are things that I doubt I'll ever really go back to, but I guess we'll have to see!​
 

PeridotGX

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 8, 2017
Messages
8,750
Location
That Distant Shore
NNID
Denoma5280
I'd love to say what I'm working on, but I'm fairly certain that would jinx it and the set would never be made. I was planning on having Heracross and Peridot in MYM21, Hyness and Mega Man X in 22, and Spinel day one for 23. I have significant work done on exactly one of the sets in my signature. I plan on posting something, but i'm not gonna say who.

Except for the Secret Santa, I'll make sure that happens in 24.
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Daisy WeirdChillFever WeirdChillFever

I'm quite a fan of Daisy's interwoven specials and how they all play into her mobility/making her something of a combo machine. It avoids the usual issue of forced movement on attacks making you play more defensively by giving her the leisure to choose when she makes use of different mobility options via her Neutral Special, giving her a properly high energy and aggressive feel. Her melee moves and the way her moves fit in with one another are well written, and give her a fairly whole feeling set of practical tools on top of her flashy and creative specials. She's a personal favorite of mine for all of these little tricks and details.

Onto the topic of what I don't like, or at least what I'm less certain of. I feel there might be a little too much in her mechanics and interactions. The coins and Smiley Flowers lead into a nice reward, letting her grab and utilize her Super Balls as an item (even Z-dropping them). Even with the obvious applications for being able to play off of her SB-related shenanigans more freely and the need to balance that, it might've been better to find a way to cut out a step? It's a good reward, but it feels like it's adding complexity without much added to depth in return to have to collect coins. It could just be a property of the upgrade from getting her Super Ball to land in her garden, with a z-drop or other item throw removing the upgrade to keep it from getting crazy.

I'm not certain how I feel about her Up Special being linked to her Down Special, or the plants that grow from her Up Special flower landing in her garden, though the latter's effect is simply a logical upgrade that makes them better at what they're meant to do, so it doesn't add too much complexity for the interesting twists it adds.

Stepping away from her larger mechanics, I feel most of her set is interesting enough in practice while being simple enough in function that the heavy complexity of her core mechanics don't leave the set long-winded or cluttered. If I had to pick any of this side of her set as lacking, I would say her throws aren't especially interesting, albeit functional enough and having their niches. Exploring more into how they can lead into or play off of Daisy's other options might be a good idea.



Phoenix Rychu Rychu

Phoenix has fun concepts that nevertheless feel under-explored and VERY under-tuned. I love the trick of him being able to fire off an input faster if he repeats it immediately after using it, since that creates a few baked in 50/50 situations of opponents having to guess if he'll keep pushing with one weapon or switch to another and catch them coming out of a dodge/dropping their shield. His specials all spoke to me, especially Up and Down Specials providing some heavy damage/slight passive healing that forces foes to press the attack and a remote-controlled second body, respectively.

Going into the problems: Even accounting for the payoff of headshots and the sheer number of multi-hits, Phoenix probably won't get to make a ton of use of his econ points. His coverage options are very strict and narrow, his lag is poor for his attacks' payoffs any time he changes weapons, and he doesn't get a whole lot to compensate for as cool as his Specials are.

I'd allow him to angle more of his side inputs, make the lag for changing weapons only slightly unpleasant while repeating the same input is very quick provided you don't hit the reload threshold (maybe have a UI element pop over his head to show remaining shots?), and go into detail about the aforementioned 50/50s and how having differing lag on inputs between when you change a weapon and if you stick with your current one creates some mix-ups.

I'd tweak the numbers a bit to make his attacks stronger and up the rate he gets econ points/slash prices. The set also needs a bit more exploration into differing his non-special inputs in application niches and how they play together (there's a mention or two of good stuff like a given attack being poor against shields already; maybe make some weapons particularly strong against them, note which weapons have enough of a duration to their sustained fire to punish dodges, etc).

The ideas are fun but there's not much done with them in the current iteration. It's something I'd love to see you expand on, either in edits or in a future remake/remix if you feel you want to try after having had more time to grow as a set maker/experiment with other ideas. This is a set with a very, very fun basis that speaks well to the things you'll make in the future!
 
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Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
757
Location
taco bell, probablyn't
If you didn't see already or couldn't see already, Gnasty Gnorc is Gnow Complete!

Additionally, I've got a hot new comment for y'all for...

Mysterio by BKupa666 BKupa666 is one of the absolutely most mind-boggling sets I’ve read (not counting really incomprehensible rubbish), fitting for the iconic villain. The fact that a single person created something this elaborate is truly impressive, so props to Kupa just for making this. Mysterio’s entire schtick is one that sends up a lot of red flags all over the place, the kind of set material that is generally unappealing to someone like me because it’s a nightmare for balancing. That being said, Mysterio does an incredible job with the material in the set with only a few areas of concern.

The first, and least useful as a criticism, problem I personally have with Mysterio is that invisibility in Smash is historically not a fun thing to play with. Losing track of your character is part of the challenge, of course, but unlike the Cloaking Device for this set to be effective it has to be perfect invisibility. In my opinion, playing pretty much any game where you suddenly can’t see your character is harrowing, but it’s an unfortunate necessity for this entire moveset to work. Thankfully the invisibility is short-lived and encouraged to just take the time for one or two basic attacks, so it’s far from the most crippling aspect. It’s just at the very core, I don’t know how I feel about the foundation for the moveset.

The set works the invisibility incredibly well, however. All sorts of circumstances are considered, options are weighed, and it uses both the numbers and the psychology to balance it astonishingly well. Foes aren’t suddenly forever lost should they mistake an illusion for Mysterio, as it’ll be over soon enough. Mysterio can’t just keep relying on one trick mindlessly or the strings will start to show. Almost all of Mysterio’s tools play off this back and forth of knowledge and trickery that makes this one of the most engaging movesets to read.

My other issue with the set is a smaller part with the Mega Mysterio illusions. I totally get the inclusion but I think a few of the inputs would be way too strong to consistently deal with and overall he would be annoying to deal with anyways. The most standout moves for this to me were DSmash’s Mega Fist acting as a trap for up to 7 seconds still, and the approach options with DTilt and especially Dash Attack going off stage. I think part of what throws me off here is there’s not really any sort of downside to this besides preparation and having to actually use the initial Fishbowl attack. I might be alone on this but Mega Mysterio gets excessive in my eyes.

Having said that, those are ultimately two complaints that don’t tip the scales compared to how well crafted the set is. This is one of the coolest sets I’ve read in a while and I’d love to keep seeing high concept sets like this from you in the future. I just worry a bit about the practicality of playing both Mysterio and against Mysterio with the points I’ve mentioned, but ultimately this is a theoretical moveset making competition and this is some damn good theory.
For “Lucky” Louise by U UserShadow7989 I did most of my commentary while I was reading the set in the Discord. To make this more of a formal comment, I’ll copy those thoughts to this comment, though it will mean this is a much less well written comment.

“Because Louise is so long I'm going to be putting general commentary here as I go because I find it really really draining to actually write formal comments for longer sets but still want to provide some kind of feedback. i'm currently up through the specials and thoroughly impressed! This is an exceptional foundation for a set that ties in all the mechanics and specials already while still providing general utility like recovery. If the other moves in the set are as clever with how they use the dice rolls (which is such a fun mechanic just from a fun perspective already) I can see this being one of the top choices for a set in this contest. The writing style is also key to making this an enjoyable experience; having the writing split between the more narrative descriptions and the bullet points of the million possible interactions and ramifications allows the set to be fun instead of clinical without smacking readers with a million walls of text.
If I have any commentary against the set so far it's only in that I've found the writing can get confusing at times, though I will readily admit user error on that and I'll probably give it another pass tomorrow when I'm rested. Ultimately I can just check in with you for things i need clarifying but with so many working parts it's hard to make sure everything is stated and described in the most clear order.
All in all I have extremely high expectations (also from the good reception the set has already had)”

“Finished the smashes on Lucky Louise and this set has not started to slip at all. In fact, I find the Smashes much easier to read than the Specials in terms of writing, the only real complaint I had at the start. The smashes continue to support the mechanics really well, particularly with the Die Bomb being an extremely fun trap and construct with a great usage of the dice mechanic. The Smashes here really succeed at not feeling "too" special and aren't redundant at all with the specials. There's complex details about pretty much all aspects of the attacks and not just for show or length; the punching glove highly details range, sourspots, and sweetspots, but the utility of the attack requires that kind of precision in order to actually function well with the ability to move constructs around. Also, just a really good job with capturing this theming so well, these are perfect attack choices for the character!”

“Finished with Louise's Grab Game now which, unsurprisingly, continues to be excellent. It's a good combination of keeping Louise highly mobile and highly slapstick. The sack is a really solid addition to the set's toolkit as well, helping keep Louise from feeling like she has to just camp out after making all her constructs. Favorite throw is definitely the held Down Throw, the Kick Me sign effect is one of the most unique effects I can recall in MYM and just helps flow with how the set functions really well. Not to mention extremely funny to imagine with characters like Ganondorf or Ridley.”

“Only Aerials remain, and the Standards do an excellent job of showing why this set doesn't flounder by having so many options; the 'buffed' inputs aren't just stronger versions of the default attacks, they're context-dependent and worth going out of the way for when the right situation pops up. Louise gets to be a regular set when she needs to be and use her dice to perform all her really cool stuff that ties in thematically well with her regulars. Animations continue to be really fun, and I'm a big fan of the DTilt golf ball angle being dependent on the die roll.”

“Finally got finished reading through the Aerials for Louise (will get to Final Smash and flavor later, for now would like to focus on reading some other sets). The Aerials continue the solid trend of the set and work well as a character designed to have a weak air game without having useless Aerials. We get a couple more projectiles to play with that work really well with how the set has been developed. There's also an element of mobility in the moves which is what I was expecting going into the Aerials. UAir and BAir phone in the Rolled Die mechanic a bit compared to the rest of the set, particularly BAir just changing knockback. These are the only two moves that have the Die feel more like a footnote so it's hardly a slip up, and the effects for both are well-justified for the gameplay so it's not a let down either, it just stands out compared to the other moves. All said, incredible work with Louise, and clearly an absurd amount of work and love went into the set. Louise is an exceptional projectile-redirection set for more reasons than I can list, but the set remembers to be more than just a pinball set. Despite almost every move essentially being doubled, the set is hardly draining to read (though it did take me a few sittings). A really strong contender in this contest”
I mentioned in chat but Il Blud by Smady Smady is a really weird and really fun set, and I’m happy to see Yu-Gi-Oh! getting more love from the community instead of just a handful of people. Il Blud’s playstyle is really distinct and fun to imagine, a weird grappling Jigglypuff with some fun minions and statuses, plus something of a tipper thanks to the ball & chain. You’ve mentioned that part of the goal of the set was to get away from your normal style and while I would say you’ve succeeded in breaking new ground it’s also still clearly you who’s written the set. This is because weirdly reading this set brings to mind the way you play Rool and Dedede, just a fun note on the author style.

My opinions on this set are overall very positive, so first I’ll bring up a few qualms I had while reading to get them out of the way. Occasionally I feel like the moves can be under detailed, not in terms of lacking depth but missing clarifying details. Some examples are with how Mezuki and Gozuki work should they hit both Chop Man and Kick Man. Do they both just get extinguished? Is there even room for that in the attack? It’s something where I can assume an outcome but I figure asking these questions could result in a more interesting outcome as a result. Also, while I find the ball & chain really fun for the melee it’s used for I do feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential in terms of interacting with the more spectral aspects of the set. Some of the moves are also on the brisk side, but this isn’t so much of an issue as we’ve sort of decided as a community that more brief sets or moves can actually be nice.

The combination of summons and minions is really inspired in this set, having your tethered but generally intangible Chop and Kick Men, the Smash Summons, and the really fun Gemini Dthrow. The way all the zombies work together leads to really nice moments of reading where thinks click together organically, with fun flavor. I do wish there were more references to the Plaguespreader Zombie’s effect, though it functions well self-contained in the move given the nature of it. It’s fun to see how the minions can extend Il Blud’s moves, the main obviously being FTilt but also the Gemini’s projectiles in general. A lot of mileage gotten out of essentially two minion-summoning moves without having gigantic inputs.

The Il Fly is really fun too, though I have the bias of having similar inspiration for Shigaraki. It works as an extremely central aspect of the set that ties into every input section and every concept in the set. It’s also fun to have that flexibility by making Il Blud just so good in the air he doesn’t need a spontaneous recovery. One of my definite favorite aspects of the set is the Grab Game’s effects. The timer is really fun and in character for Yu-Gi-Oh!, and having different ways of lowering it through either throws or the foe’s ‘gemini’ ghost with the portals. Again, everything ties into the portals really smoothly and even gets to have fun with hanging from them with the ol’ ball & chain. Excellent work, Smady, especially for how quickly this set was made!
FrozenRoy FrozenRoy I have finished Rufus finally! I'm a sucker for a fancy gunwork set as might be evident by my own setwork this contest so I really enjoyed his set. Rufus has one of the better uses of an ammo mechanic I've seen in recent memory with your amount of ammo left directly influencing what moves you'll want to use, and having an auto reload mechanic means you've actually got to keep an eye on your bullets rather than just spending a lot of time camping for reloads (though you can still do this by just using bullet moves away from the opponent to force a reload). Darkstar is really well executed for a puppet with a full moveset, and while his moves tend to be shorter on the whole I think this works best. Darkstar doesn't cost a stock on death while Rufus does, so there's a strong incentive to play as Rufus primarily while using Darkstar for support. Of course, this is gives a huge reward for mechanical skill and game sense for quick switching.

I will say the set is very topheavy, with the specials doing the bulk of the work for the set. That's not to say that the later moves aren't thought out or well described, but rather that most of the heavy gameplay elements are just in the Specials and Smashes. Having the coins linger in the air and interact with most of the moves Rufus has works! But by leaving this unsaid for the most part the later inputs can feel really brisk, especially since they are frequently a bit shorter anyways as they're split between two characters. To clarify, this isn't a huge issue with the set by any means, but the set starts with really massive inputs and ends with much, much shorter which makes for a bit of a jarring read. The set is still quite good, however!
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Jesus. Christ. If you’ve ever wanted to play as an environmental hazard, then Primordial Darkness by ForwardArrow ForwardArrow is the set for you. One of FA’s biggest strengths is the ability to consistently craft sets that play by their own rules and this is no exception. Primordial Darkness is impractically strong for a moveset, outdamaging even the bosses in Smash Bros (AFAIK). Naturally this demands balance for a character that can just be casually picked up and played, and for the most part I think PD actually finds that balance.

The most obvious balancing choice for devastating attacks is massive lag on moves and Primordial Darkness has it. That said, as Smash’s history can confirm just having strong, slow moves is not a great boon to most characters. Primordial Darkness instead exists to completely control the stage and become unstoppable, really entering final boss territory. The elemental armor is a great choice for the toggle-able buffing armor, keeping it from just being a braindead ‘turn knockback off’ option by having it mandate some element of thought. I’m also a huge fan of Primordial Darkness getting better and better as he takes more damage given he will almost inevitably have to deal with given every character in the game has faster attacks.

Overall this was a great read but I did have some issues with the set. First, probably unsurprisingly, I think the general power is an issue for Primordial Darkness. Most of the massive power and overwhelming options I think are properly balanced, it’s just two specific inputs that stood out to me.

The first of these is the Ice Elemental Armor. I feel like the ability to just freely turn off grabs on top of getting super armor and even getting a double set of super armor at higher percentages seems blatantly unreasonable to deal with. I know it’s the point and he does need something to help with just getting grabbed out of all his attacks, but it just seems way too polarizing of an effect for a normal NSpec usage, especially lasting 8 seconds. The 40% limit is nice but NSpec is not the slowest of Primordial Darkness’ attacks and he can reasonably get it back up. Given the eye cancels out a lot of moves this shouldn’t be too hard, either. A band-aid fix might be preventing Primordial Darkness from using the same armor consecutively, meaning he can’t just pick one armor and stay comfortable as a permanent counter to something. This limits this issue a good deal without sacrificing any of the actual armor that makes Primordial Darkness. Just having no offensive increase isn’t enough of a nerf to the Ice Armor IMO given how insane his attacks can get normally.

The other move I think is way too good, and maybe this is totally random and offbase, is FTilt. FTilt is pretty insanely strong for a tilt and while it is on the slow side it is nowhere near as restrictively laggy as PD’s other big moves. It deals high damage, high knockback, can have complete armor from basically everything when combined with Elemental Armor, and even deals extra shield damage. I know FTilt is designed to make up for the fact that a huge chunk of PD’s set can be unusable with bad luck or setup, but I think it tips the power way too hard. I might be wrong about this but it stood out pretty hard to me.

Despite those two inputs rubbing me the wrong way this is one of the strongest sets I’ve read this contest. I’m glad you are literally incapable of staying in retirement because your sets are always good reads, especially when they get experimental like this. Primordial Darkness is a completely wild set that you’ve pulled off nearly without hitch, though with characters as extreme as this it’s hard to really envision how they would end up working in practice rather than theory. Excellent work!
I actually have never read the original Pennywise (maybe I’ll get around to it one of these days), but Katapultar Katapultar has done an excellent job at making what feels like the definitive Pennywise set. This is one of the tackiest sets I’ve seen in a while, but in a way that is both intentional and fitting and it works really well here. Nearly every move is highly referential, mixed in well with plenty of constant taunting and heckling of the foe. It’s also a little weird to have read Mysterio after Pennywise, given they have quite a few similarities with the illusory Pennywise and the giant hand Smash.

Notably this set does an excellent job at trimming words, getting an impressive amount of gameplay out of the length. This is something we need more of in MYM as everyone is aware and it makes for a nice read (especially with all the flavor throughout the moves to keep things from feeling clinical). The set feels like a longer set without having the actual wordiness, which isn’t the easiest to do! The set does a great job at combining all these different references into a fear-inducing web designed to trap foes between all of Pennywise’s constructs until he can sink his claws into them.

In terms of areas I’m not the biggest fan of, I think there are a few issues with using sound as one of the main gimmicks for mindgames. Without other tells, any number of issues can make this a problem for opponents without Pennywise needing to actually do anything. Deafness, TV muted, listening or watching to something else, talking over the startups, and language barriers are all potential problems, but I don’t knock the set too much for this because there’s only a handful of moves that this would cause an issue for. Important to keep in mind before someone tries to make an entire set based on that idea.

Beyond that, I don’t have much specific to comment on with Pennywise. I may not be as overly wild with it as some other readers but it’s a very strong set that never really slips up in the inputs. Of the Kat sets I’ve read (Hotaru, Uraraka, and Pennywise) I think Pennywise is definitely the best. Plus, very fun to read just for all the references, jokes, and quotes throughout!
WeirdChillFever WeirdChillFever always makes sets that are, if nothing else, interesting, but I go on record as saying Cap’n Cuttlefish is easily the best of your sets I’ve read so far. This isn’t by default or anything, Cap’n Cuttlefish is a genuinely really neat set that explores some great concepts. I enjoyed your BotW sets but Cuttlefish feels much more cohesive than Kilton did. Cuttlefish manages to have great central concepts such as the balance of gamestate and the constant presence of C. Q. Cumber while balancing a lot of neat experimental mechanics. The different inks, particularly the Thermal Ink, are fun and do a great job at separating Cuttlefish from Smash’s Inkling. The different projectiles, particularly the bubbles and the curling bomb, make for some really interesting stage control while adding unique twists to Cuttlefish’s gameplay.

Pretty much every input in the set feels like it’s trying something out to help make Cuttlefish stand out in a good way. The throws even have some really cool things like the Fizzy Bomb changing based on how many pummels Cuttlefish gets in. I’m also a big fan of the Up Special Grapplink and how it functions with his moveset. Everything ultimately ties in to make Cap’n Cuttlefish a really fun concept for a sniper moveset, rewarding good aim and careful spacing while still encouraging a lot of mobility thanks to all the options. Every input feels deliberately crafted without everything feeling totally disjointed and I’m really impressed by the set!

If there’s anything to directly complain about, I think the Toxic Mist move is a bit incongruous with the rest of the set and might be really unfun to play against. It has some neat interactions with bubbles and becoming a triggerable mine with a snipe, but ultimately I don’t feel it meshes with everything else. Also, the disrupting status is pretty rough for foes with the constant interruptions and able to be applied really strongly through a direct impact. Plus, I feel like the Toxic Mist explosion phase giving a fullon stun effect might be a little much, and perhaps a shorter Paralyzer effect would be better. I don’t think the Toxic Mist is super offensive, but I do think it is the weak link of the set.

Overall a very fun read with some really cool concepts to picture throughout the set. Great work, WCF!
Finally got around to finishing Wolfgeist BKupa666 BKupa666 . It's an excellent set interpretation for one of the more memorable bosses from LM3 and basically none of his potential is left untapped. Overall this is a solid read (though I'm a bigger fan of Mysterio) and a great take on a featherweight. The set feels like a set for a musical character without falling into any weird traps like forcing rhythm games for the player or foe and instead focusing on weaving musical phrases by adding quick combos together to deliver powerful moves from the Mad Piano. The set makes great use of Wolfgeist being a ghost and allowing him all these neat mobility tools to combine with his constructs, notably his long range grab. Wolfgeist excels at giving himself tools to play off of with his other inputs. One of the big standout moves for me was Wolfgeist's Down Throw that has a huge payoff with great reading and is conceptually very cool.

One of the issues I found when reading is that Wolfgeist feels very heavily centered around the Mad Piano's Percussive Plunge. Wolfgeist has some other kill moves (such as the aforementioned DThrow with a good read or his Smashes) but Wolfgeist's durability feels like he'd want another strong attack, possibly on an aerial, that he can also try to bring in rather than just relying on Smashes and his piano. Maybe that's too directly opposed to the playstyle concept which I do really like but it feels like in a set filled with really neat tools to work with Wolfgeist is just going to go back to the same kill confirm. This is especially notable as Wolfgeist wants to be in the air but relies on a construct to secure stocks while he's up there. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the set a bit here and if I am do let me know.

The set's still good fun though and has a lot of excellent concepts. It's no secret you're a big fan of Wolfgeist and it shines through in the set. I just think he suffers from leaning way too hard into stringing combos together instead of reaching the finale, and having the option to lead directly from combos into a flashy kill move of Wolfgeist's would be really fitting for a musician like him. It's far from a terrible set but I think there's just some dissonance where the individual parts are concerned.
Another whopper of a set by U UserShadow7989 , Hina is quite the read. Despite a trimmer wordcount than Louise I feel like there's far more happening in Hina so it's hard to pick a good place to start. The set is a fascinating, if a bit grueling, one, leaning hard into stage control and puppetry with a lot of interactions between the parts. Hina uses the same style of writing as Louise with the switch between the bullet points and the narrative descriptions though I personally think it's better done in Louise's set. Hina's wordiness is broken up in awkward places compared to Louise, at least until the tilts where I think the writing style gets a lot more comfortable. I know Froy discussed some specifics such as with the Jab but it is interesting to see the differences in how Hina and Louise were written.

Among the many, many things this set does the primary focus seems to be on the scarecrows, the element that are scattered amongst all the mechanics in some way. These one-hit wonders are talked about in nearly every move, understandable as they can use nearly every move Hina herself can. The scarecrows are capable of some neat stuff. I think the scarecrows are at their strongest when they assist in Hina's gameplay more directly, such as how they can serve as a recovery by trading places with Hina, or allowing her to pass a throw off to a minion instead. The scarecrows sticking to their altitude is a great mechanic as well, tying in with the stage control nicely and working really well with the planters Hina can produce. It's really appealing to imagine scarecrows dancing all over the stage at different heights to perform insane ladder combos and the like!

I do have a few issues with the scarecrows, at least in terms of how they're presented. A decent chunk of every move is more or less dedicated to saying that scarecrows essentially triple the hitbox size of attacks when lined up, which is both the most intuitive and least interesting aspect of the scarecrows barring specific cases. I think the set could trade out some of the repetition discussing hitbox size in exchange for talking about specific combos that can be pulled with either the distanced scarecrows or the desynced ones, as both of those concepts would be great to have more development for. Another aspect of the scarecrows I might trim down would be the presence of the projectile scarecrows. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but very rarely does the projectile scarecrow do anything unique besides moving compared to the other scarecrows and I think it busies up the set just a bit. The projectile scarecrow doesn't take up much time when discussing, though, so it's not pressing or anything but I feel like removing that version and perhaps reusing the input to work in more controllable desync would accomplish a similar goal but simpler.

Most of the other concepts in the set I'm pretty solid on. The blossoms are fun and work really well with all the aspects of the set, and I've already mentioned how the planters are a positive. It's really impressive to tie so many concepts into a moveset, though I think this can also result in an extremely complex moveset that could afford a bit more simplicity. Additionally, notably in the Specials and Smashes, the inputs are packed. Specials do about a million things that are seemingly unconnected to squeeze more out of them, such as the main construct input also serving as a soft counter and a teleport recovery. Unlike the command dash being passed off to the scarecrows to perform to summon them there's a much looser justification for the input doing all three things at once and it's both jarring and a lot to remember for a single move. Hina is a busy set with all of not only her projectiles but also her scarecrow's projectiles, her constructs, and whatever her blooms feel like doing at the time. Compared to Louise this set lacks a lot of the tight focus that made her length much less noticeable.

Hina is not a bad set at all! However, I think Hina misses a bit of what made Louise such a great set, at least for me to read. I think the set gets away from the core concepts a bit as it starts exploring every avenue in a manner not dissimilar to the Dragonmaids of last contest. I know there's a lot of criticism in this comment but that's just because lately I've been trying to have more specific and constructive comments. I promise I did like this set, I just feel Louise is so much stronger.
It's been a hot second since a read a newer member's set, but I decided to give Cinderace by NeonVoid NeonVoid a lookthrough! To start off, this moveset feels almost more like a pitch for Cinderace in Smash rather than having been crafted specifically for a competition with the way certain things are worded or justified, but honestly that's not a problem. It's nice to have less aggressive sets to read especially as word creep becomes more and more real in MYM. Cinderace is actually a pretty solid set for a first set (I don't think you've posted any sets in MYM before?), certainly better than most of my starting spread. The cheering mechanic is a fun one and is both unique and totally something that could happen in Smash. It ties in well with the sometimes unwieldy Specials, notably making both Iron Head and Pyro Ball very nicely buffed to compensate for their normal weaknesses. While many of the normals are, well, pretty normal, a few do hop out to me. I like the DAir being a fast combo with a late spike and designed well for crossups on shields.

One thing that people will be told for forever is that detail is important. Super complex interactions within sets and finer balanced details are something that come with practice and reading, so it's not something I'm going to hammer in as needing fixed. There are a few other things I would like to bring up. First, damage percentages. Every attack that deals damage should have a damage percentage stated for them. This only really seems to be a problem in the Specials from when I read, a few inputs like the uncharged Pyro Ball or Galarian Punt having ambiguous or missing damage counts. For Smashes, it's good to figure out the uncharged damage for the attack and then run a calculator to multiply that damage by 1.4 times. This is the universal max charge multiplier for Smash attacks so that should give you a nice range so it sounds more factual than stating the rough damage the attack does. Even if you don't stick around MYM forever this is great information for general set-making, something I assume you're interested in beyond just Cinderace given the decent quality of this. You've done a good job with noting kill potential and combos, though, and you seem like you've got a solid grasp on Smash gameplay. One more thing about damage percentages: the jab states that it does 14% damage on a frame 6 jab which is frankly insane (and given that your other numbers seem pretty reined in this might be a typo). I might be misunderstanding and it could be the total damage for a jab combo, in which case it's very good to break the damage up into its components for clarity.

As for the Cheering mechanic, I might make a few adjustments if it were up to me. First, I think having the cheer mechanic cool down after it's activated, keeping Cinderace from abusing the potent Specials endlessly and providing a way to switch the buffed move. Second, I might have the activated Cheer give Cinderace some sort of statistical buff, such as an increase in speed or jump height to help with combos and ramping up the concept that the crowd is feeding off the hype. And as a final general criticism, speaking of stats, Cinderace's stats could use a good makeover. You can peep other sets to see the commonly described stats but typically you'll want weight, height, walk and run speed, jump heights, aerial speed, and fall speed. A couple common ways of quantifying these are on a scale of 1-10 to give a general feel for the stats, the use of actual units such as Smash's speed units or the training grids, or character comparisons (a lot of character stats for Smash can be found on Kurogane Hammer, and anything missing can usually be Googled).

I hope what I've said can be of help in the future for you, I enjoyed reading through Cinderace and would actually like this set in Smash Bros! I hope you choose to stick around MYM and thanks for the fun set!
Fitting that I would read Armano by Smady Smady so shortly after Hina as they both serve as evolutions of Olimar's Pikmin mechanic. Armano naturally uses his precious son in a way that's quite humorous. One thing about Ace Attorney sets is they end up invariable fun to read because of the inherent comedy of making a set for the series. This is the case of a set where I can see a thousand permutations where the tools could expand in x or y way but I think one of Armano's strengths is his focus. The set has a lot of fun with the toolkit of 'having minions' and while we could have more complex details and usage of the many props throughout I'm glad we didn't. One, I really like the length of the set as is, and two, we instead get more detail on how Lance and the Badgers can combo into each other or Armano's attacks and how they can desync successfully.

The set never really lets up, each input section feeling fleshed out all the way through the grabs. It's not as extreme as a character like Cap'n Cuttlefish but every move feels like it's trying to stand out from the others in a good way. The main thing about the set that I do have to state is that Armano's own attacks are almost comedically short. This isn't the world's biggest issue and it helps drive home that Armano is near useless- oh, sorry, as strong as solo Popo without his son and mascots. It does feel like he could have some more utility with his solo moves, not necessarily functioning for combos or kills but instead being great at making space and chip damage on the foes. Armano does have the nice DAir solo and it would be cool to see how his set shifts to play in a different way without his pals in more inputs. I also feel that the Badgers could be expanded upon just a bit. Obviously given that they are random they shouldn't entirely change Armano's set depending but I know the set talked a bit about the differences and they never really paid off. The main one that pops into mind is how Blue Badger was stated to have better sweetspots than the others, IIRC, something which barely ever comes up in the actual set.

All said, there's not too much to complain about in Armano. The set is a blast to read! Most that can be said is there is a lot of room to expand in a lot of areas. For Armano's solo attacks I think this is more important and helps keep the set from only being run away to get your good attacks back as that's sort of how Armano is supposed to be better than Olimar. The props could be added as more permanent mechanics but it's a crapshoot as to whether it would actually improve the set or not and I like them how they are. I do think the differences in the Badgers could be exaggerated even more, especially since Armano will typically have Lance around as a consistent option for moves so the irregularities would matter less. Great work with the set!
Jalter by Katapultar Katapultar is a really fun concept as a totally dominated lightweight (excuse for the sorry state of this comment but my Comment Meter is running low). While characters gaining buffs through taking damage is far from new for sets (and we even see it in Smash already of course with Rage and Lucario among others), lightweights always make for more interesting uses of it in my opinion. With heavyweights, it's already expected for them to take damage throughout the fight, hence why they have a high weight. For lightweights taking hits is a much bigger deal since they die so early, and it makes it a great balance of risk getting killed early vs. the advantage getting hit makes. Speaking of, I enjoy Jalter's Avenger Meter, providing some insane potential for her including total invulnerability but it takes quite some work to get to, particularly when there's a good chance she can just as likely be dead at that point. It's like an extreme One Winged Angel. It's much more powerful than just armor on Smashes, but in exchange it's not automatic and Jalter's set is generally just worse than Sephiroth's in terms of usability.

I know people have brought it up before but I really like the wyverns. "Casually" spawning in two flying autonomous minions is pretty strong but there's some nice deliberate balance that keeps this from overwhelming. The general simplicity in the wyverns is nice as well, keeping Jalter from becoming too much of a puppet master and instead working as a solid pressure tool. More fun is how the wyverns leave the manifestation of avengement after dying, giving both the Avenger mechanic and the wyverns way more significance in the set thanks to the great synergy. The wyverns work great with all the fire throughout the set and the lingering spears as well, making for some stylish and intimidating stage control that Jalter needs to get her moves off. On the subject of balance I personally am a little more worried about it here than others, I think. To compare to another dominating character, Primordial Darkness is nearly unplayable without his insane tools, while I feel like Jalter has a generally better set without taking into account her tools. She is also not as extreme in power as PD, but I think her more traditional movepool could result in her being unstoppable once she gets going. That could just be me, though.

The only other thing I would mention is that a few inputs feel too fundamentalist, such as FThrow and possibly NAir where they are almost just glossed over. This isn't a common problem with the move, though, just the areas that leave me wanting a little more. The writing in this set is also really fun, one of if not outright the most profane set I've read which leads to plenty of chances to chuckle. All said, I think Pennywise is a tighter set that just hits me a bit better than Jalter, but her set itself is also nothing to sneeze at and currently sits as my second favorite Kat set this contest.
I'll be the first to say we do not get enough bug commanding sets in MYM at all, so I was very excited to find out that Wriggle by U UserShadow7989 was exactly that! The general way the bugs are commanded, switching between Active and Dormant, allows for a lot of really cool bullet hell beyond just normal projectile spam. Insects are the perfect projectile and I love to see the diversity in the bugs represented in the set and how they're utilized (I don't know how much just comes from Touhou or is from you but either way it's fun). The DSmash Mole Crickets are one of my favs both as a normal move and then a sustainable projectiles, and I like the idea of moves becoming more useful after they've been used (something I tried with Mami's tilts as well). I think the three move memory is about as perfect a balanced number you could get so that the mechanic stays relevant without Wriggle having completely busted and unstoppable combos. I also love that between Sephiroth and Wriggle DAir has become the meme move input.

One of the major issues I have with the set is the order in which things are explained, specifically at the beginning of the set. I'm not sure quite the best way to handle it but explaining how the Specials interacts with the unique hitboxes of Wriggle's later attacks when the reader doesn't quite know what that means yet makes the set a little unapproachable on the first pass. It took me some time going back to the set a bit before I just accepted it and kept reading. The mechanics themselves make perfect sense once you have the context of Wriggle's attacks, but before that it's really confusing, at least for me the Average Reader. I think just a paragraph of explanation more in depth covering how Wriggle's general attacks work could clear that up a lot and make one of the more obtuse areas of the set much clearer. Once the Smashes hit the set becomes much easier to read, and I suspect this is the main culprit.

Outside of being confounded by the start of the set I actually have little to complain about with Wriggle. There's an excellent balance of her projectile bug friends and a well-described melee game that would keep her versatile and not just crumple against foes good against projectiles. I was worried starting the set that it would just be a lot of insects extending hitboxes and having that be it but honestly the bug moves and the melee combos are equally enjoyable to read here. If there's one area of the set I feel is lacking I guess it would be the Focus Mode which has a good universal affect but is one of those mechanics that just results in not having much to say about it throughout the set. Even with that, however, a lot of moves do make good use of it, like FTilt and DThrow, I guess I just would want that level of effort across all the set regarding Focus Mode. Either way this is an exceptional set that I'm guessing I like more than a lot of people as I've not really head much about it.
Katapultar Katapultar has serious writing chops to crank out so many sets a contest, especially when they get as big as Ayesha Altugle. I want to get the elephant in the room out of the way now: the total word count for these move is just above 21,000 words (that's fine in and of itself), and 8,000 of those words are the Neutral Special Alchemy. Technically Neutral Special covers both the mechanic and the Shield Special, but over a third of the set is kept in this one move. I actually didn't find the move hard to read as it's essentially a dozen or so different attacks condensed into one input, but it's extremely topheavy like this and I'm worried to what extent. Basically Alchemy is a combination of Steve's Mining with Link's Bomb, but rather than just upgrading tools or bringing out a bomb this lets Ayesha spawn in something like 15 different items. Given how good spawning in one item can be for a character, having this many choices even puts Pac-Man to shame. My complaint here is just something of an oft-repeated "too much can be too much", because I actually really like the gathering and alchemy mechanic and having a set more laser-focused on item creation. I think that Ayesha just might have too many options, especially given some of these items can be really powerful. A Snorlax-sized attack is pretty insane, especially considering materials are pretty easy to come by (even the Quality Materials don't seem to hard to scrounge up thanks to the mechanics). The twin suns item is another that's exceptionally powerful, self-admitted in the set, and the variety of the items past the bombs gets to be pretty extreme. I also think the God Drug seems extreme, giving her crazy good jumps and dash speed.

One of the things that keeps me from feeling too convinced this set is totally unbalanced is that, outside of the recovery, the Specials are all related to either the items or her cauldron, making them really bad tools outside of them. And I like how they work! Having an anchored teleport shield special and counter tied directly to her cauldron means for her to play even effectively she has to dedicate herself to her item-based playstyle. Unlike Steve she can't even move her cauldron on demand, instead needing to destroy it with her own melee that can leave her vulnerable to a foe's counterattack. The Smashes see a resurgence of this item playstyle, with FSmash being notably a really cool reward for using items and leaving them around and a great reason to opt for the less convenient Quality Materials! It's a really cool interaction that can't really be pulled off without the set's specific tricks. Up Smash has a cool interaction but I think it's a bit too good, particularly with the addition of the mirrored Ayesha allowing her to double damage and knockback. The standards / aerials of the set vary from solid melee move to useful hitbox (like FTilt's bullet for cauldron protection) and even cool interactions with the set (like NAir's reflector or UAir's item teleport).

Ultimately Ayesha's a set I really want to like. It has some of the coolest tools and really does a great job at building around an item-based moveset more deeply than any that come to mind. It's just that first input that's really tripping me up. I think there's too much diversity in the items that one move can create, making it a nightmare for pretty much anyone to learn her matchup. Considering all the tools she has to interact with the items that adds so many dimensions for almost every of those items. I also have concerns about a few of the items' balance on their own, as mentioned in the comment. I almost wish the set pulled a bit more from Steve and spread some of the items out to different inputs, slimming down NSpec and spreading some of the items on other inputs. This would add an element of choosing to invest on her item gameplay or using her materials to buff her attacks instead. Unfortunately, I don't really know of where I'd put any of the items outside of NSpec, so I'm struggling to give more meaningful suggestions. I'm really impressed by this endeavor, and it has some really well thought out tools! I just feel really uneasy about the big bad NSpec.
The last of Smady Smady 's sets I've read, I must have saved the best for last with skekUng. skekUng is a deceptively strong set that does really fun things with a minion set, even more so than either Armano or Il Blud this contest. In fact, this has become one of my favorite sets this contest, impressive given how late into the contest I read it. The minions themselves don't take too much time to read or work to learn for a player; Garthim are extremely straight forward, and while the Crystal Bat and the Shroud are a bit less intuitive they know what they need to do and they do it! It's how the set works with the handful of simpler minions that's so brilliant. There's a lot of great hard and soft interactions that are really fun, even extending to inputs like FTilt and DSmash. I also like how skekUng plays off of sacrificing his own minions meaningfully; if he's too careless he'll end up losing valuable tools and his recovery, but risking that carelessness is how he can make really impressive plays.

Speaking of FTilt, there's actually one specific and pretty big complaint I have about skekUng, and it's that I feel like he should have a similar effect on an aerial (FAir would make the most sense). It's a pretty useful tool but notably there's not really anything he can do to hit the Crystal Bats with FTilt, even when they're spawned in as they appear over his head and then try to hover a few Ganondorfs above their target. As is, skekUng will almost never pull this off barring specific platform configurations, and either having an aerial also give this effect or at least having the Crystal Bat spawn in front of the Garthim Master would make this an actual usable part of the move. This would also help beef up the aerials a little, the only area the set falters even a little.

Besides that, this set is aces. I love the idea of a minion being both his recovery and a DoT obscuring effect, especially as skekUng really benefits off the ladder thanks to Trial by Stone. Stage setup between Trial by Stone, the Shroud, and the DSmash bug juice is effective but largely nonobstructive, something I do really like to see and helping imagine it in a real Smash match. I have the one apparent oversight for the FTilt / Crystal Bat interaction as an issue, and I think the aerials are noticeably less complex than all the other input sections, but neither of those are that big of issues and I find myself enjoying this set thoroughly regardless. Great work!
Ganon by Chase Chase is a set that unfortunately went under the radar for most of the contest and I apologize it took until the end of the contest to get any input on him. Ganon is a solid first set, having enough understanding of Smash's gameplay to even write up a sizeable playstyle section which is always nice. There's some cool ideas in the set, such as Ganon using his reflector to begin Dead Man's Volley which is a unique twist on the move I'd never seen. There's a few standout moves as well, such as DAir having an interesting landing mechanic or Dash's unique animation. There's a lot of promise in this set that, with more expanding on inputs, could result in a neat and more competitive set.

I don't just mention detailing to help make the set longer, but as there's areas where the set becomes clearer and lend itself to more interesting moves by answering the detail questions. A great example is Dead Man's Volley; it's stated that strong attacks reflect the projectile between the two but it's not specified how strong. Are tilts strong enough? Uncharged Smashes? By answering that question you can go on to provide Ganon unique tools in those areas that allow him to specialize in Dead Man's Volley. This starts to build up the playstyle of the set really easily, springboarding off the other moves to help give the rest of the set more identity. Also, I did want to bring up an aspect of Side Special that rubbed me the wrong way. While I enjoy the idea of making Ganon's premiere projectile through reflecting, I think robbing him of that in a matchup without projectiles is harsh. I think you could have the move use multiple inputs; if tapped, it becomes a reflector as described, while if either held like ZSS' Paralyzer or smashed like Samus' Super Missile Ganon could generate his own projectile, maybe starting weaker than the reflector to encourage the smarter play. This would allow him to keep his main gimmick going even when he has nothing to reflect. Ganon's a solid set that's similar to the kind of work I was doing before joining MYM.
A very recent finish by FrozenRoy FrozenRoy , Shou does an excellent job of turning Smash into a proper bullet hell in a really fun way. While normally a set with this many projectiles and redirections going on at once I would take a bit of umbrage with, as those sets can be pretty overwhelming in concept for a game like Smash rather than a single-player schmup, Shou actually does a really great job of balancing out how the projectile game works. A huge amount of the set is locked behind the charge of NSpec, a move that takes 125 frames before it can even launch off the main construct of the set, and this charge is decreased as Shou gets throttled. This requires some pretty decent playing for her setup rather than just casually throwing it out, a necessity considering some of the incredible things Shou can do. Shou's also got to choose between using her pagoda charge to bring out piles of gems quickly in order to prevent losing the charge or using the charge to buff several of her moves instead, with the best scenario obviously being a combination of the two.

While Shou's got a lot of projectile options, with my personal fav being the mandala trap that has its five unique lasers, the real treat here is the other ways Shou's set weaves things together. Like many a Froy set, Shou has an excellent combo game and the set gives her plenty of mobility to work with it. The simplest form of this is her NAir, a fun take as an omnidirectional Sephiroth FTilt allowing for some cool jump angles as well as clinging onto a gemball for a threatening and unique approach option. More interestingly is her Up Special, which allows her to enter her gemballs for an even trickier approach option. This pays off in a major way with the last paragraph of the last moving detailing how the BThrow's effect allows her to hide inside the opponent. This is such a cool idea for a combo tool that allows her to piggyback off her own dealt knockback, turning more moves into unorthodox combo starters!

I mentioned already that the set is a little on the overwhelming side with projectiles, but honestly the balance there is tight enough that I'm not too concerned. One thing I do want to bring up, though not necessarily an issue, is that Shou has a fair number of interactions with her gemball but given the speed of the attack it would take two full charges at least to pull off some of these tricks. This isn't a problem but I do want to make sure that tools like NAir and USpec into the gemball aren't intended to be a super frequently used staple thing, and if that's the intention then I think the gemball's actual projectile properties should be altered (I even think that having the gemball start out slower and picking up speed when reflected would be a good change in general that would allow the aforementioned tools to be used off of even one charge because I like them so much).

Shou feels like she tries a lot grander things than Rufus and Darkstar do, having a lot of experimentation with how her projectiles work both on their own and in conjunction with the other tools in the set. I also really like how the set ends with a great bombshell of an effect with being able to ride with foes, though putting the grab earlier might have allowed for even more fun combo descriptions as they're a favorite part of Froy sets for me. Ultimately, however, I find Rufus the tighter set with a greater focus on fewer elements and I end up liking Shou and loving Rufus. Still, impressive work with Shou and has really fun ideas.
For some reason I was pulled away from this set after dipping my toe in the Specials, so I'm glad I can get back to skekMal by BKupa666 BKupa666 . This set is unabashedly a melee-focused character designed to hunt foes down and he's got some cool tools to help with it. In terms of another anime swordsmen skekMal stands out, with some highlights being how focused he is on both his own and his foe's mobility through his pummel, the Gobbles, and his USpec. The grab game is really well done in general, especially with how the unique grab release plays into his personal rage and the unique forced read UThrow has. I don't have much to say about the bulk of the melee here other than saying that I like it, especially in the Smashes where Hunter gets some pretty cool options. The Rage in the set is brought up at the beginning but doesn't feel like it adds much beyond that, mostly just referred to when it comes to what leads into a successful counter.

I am reminded of some criticism I received a few contests ago with Morag, a character wielding two swords who can lose one or both to have another character use them for a Special. The similarity here is that Morag had a lot of moves with two, one, or no weapons equipped, the criticism being that the mechanic didn't boost her set any, only making her moves longer to talk about how they were worse without the swords. While skekMal isn't quite that bad, I did take the principle to heart and I think it has some relevance here as well. The game here is having Hunter choose between using his staple projectiles or having access to his stronger attacks throughout the set. I think it could be interesting to approach this by building his unarmed attacks as having unique utility, such as making him better with combos, or perhaps being unencumbered by weaponry aiding USpec's state, something like that (we even get a taste of this in FSmash). Do you hang on to your blades for the disjointed hitboxes and having NSpec access constantly as a threat or use them all up to access a tighter combo game or something like that.

As I said, it's not really as egregious here as when I received the criticism. skekMal can get his blades back pretty easily, especially combined with the Gobbles, and with access to four of them he can avoid running out of them easily. But if running out of something in a set causes such a detriment it should be really good with it, and honestly if there's rarely much reason for him to play unarmed I feel like he could just have blades as a normal projectile that don't diminish his moveset when used. An idea I think would be neat to implement, though perhaps a bit late into the game for a major change, would be if skekMal automatically generated Rage overtime while completely unarmed. Now there's an actual incentive to play with those worse moves, building up over time for powerful attacks upon switching back. He could even use up all his blade projectiles to pressure the foe, then run after them with unarmed USpec to build Rage, do some weak combos before rushing back to pick up a sword or dagger to smack for a boosted Tilt or Smash. I totally understand not wanting to go through and change a fairly major aspect of the set right now, but I also think this would be a great way to implement Rage, the unarmed set, and the overall theme of skekMal.

Despite the two paragraphs I spent on talking about one thing, I do think skekMal is a sound melee set. It's a good read and it has neat tools when it chooses to fully utilize them, such as the Gobbles or USpec. The Hunter is just dragged down a bit by the weapon switching and Rage not really being as relevant as I would hope from the set.
Sekuna by ForwardArrow ForwardArrow is a set that I have finished reading! (Sorry, I'm really running out of ways to start comments [insert preferred skull emoji here]) That's not to say I have little to say about her, however! Sekuna is radically different from Primordial Darkness, and while I prefer him for his super extreme experimentation I quite like Sekuna as well. Sekuna isn't exactly a character who plays by the standard Smash book, either, with having a great combo game based heavily around the debuffs she can apply all over the foe and the buffs she can steal them back for. It creates a really threatening situation for foes as they have to change their plan constantly as Sekuna lands more hits on the them, almost any passing blow able to turn the tide in Sekuna's favor (literally). The buffs are no slouch either, most notably I really like having the passive healing effect that requires Sekuna to play aggressively to make use of. It's a good way to balance healing in a set that keeps her from wanting to camp out.

My main concern with Sekuna is that the debuffs are all really nice and are applied all over the place. These would be pretty strong on a slower character, but Sekuna is fast and combo-oriented. With her Full Aqua Detonate I'm worried she'd be able to lock down foes pretty handily at nearly all times. With her Guard Break Sekuna threatens defenses reliably as well. My current interpretation of Sekuna has her with near the overwhelming potential of Primordial Darkness without the weaknesses if played smart. Now, I don't think she's blatantly broken, but I do think that for having four debuffs she can get them on the foe way too easily just playing the way a normal character like Sheik or Fox would. The individual debuffs and buffs I think are balanced fine, so my issue really does just boil down to not really needing Sekuna play her game around them much if at all.

I actually wonder if the debuffs would be better handled if they were keyed to different input groups, so all tilts give Aqua Point, all Smashes give Aqua Break, etc., and then working the grab game to provide the fourth debuff. This wouldn't completely solve the issue I have but it would mean that Setsuna has to play in certain ways to capitalize off her different debuffs. Even I'm not fully sold on my own idea, though, so no worries about not taking it too seriously.

Setsuna's got a sweet combo game mixed in with her multitude of ways to manipulate the foe both directly and indirectly. I think that her buffs and debuffs are well balanced around having to keep playing aggressively to nab them, but I do think she generally gets them off way too free all things considered. I enjoy her experimentation but ultimately I definitely prefer Primordial Darkness.
Modern MYM is no stranger to time-stopping sets, but Tomoyo by Katapultar Katapultar takes a more conservative approach on the genre. Rather than having a ton of tools to abuse through her time stop, she has a brief period where she can get a limited number of moves in. Because of this, building up the time-stop is pretty passive and noncommittal for the schoolgirl. I actually don't hate this idea at all, even if it's less experimental than most time-based sets. Having her weave her normals in with the timestop with the express purpose of setting up or following on combos is a great way to make a more digestible time-based set. A great example of how the set uses this is with the jab as an example. The jab doesn't have a super crazy interaction with the timestop. Instead, buffering an attack with jab allows her to stall the start of her time freeze until that attack ends, essentially giving 'free' damage for timing the attack well.

I actually don't really have anything to say that I think this set does negatively. It's a pretty sound moveset based around balancing out Tomoyo's superpower. This gives a unique perspective in the focus of the set, though it's unfortunate that there's not as many experimental aspects to her moveset. Time stop sets are a great excuse to get really flashy and wild with attacks to see what works, I feel, as they have some of the most unique potential of big-scale mechanics. This doesn't result in Tomoyo being a bad set, but it does feel like she's left a lot of potential on the table. Losing her teleports under timestop I understand as a balancing mechanic but given Tomoyo is so slow and doesn't have that much time she can keep stopped at a time I think this would open the avenue for nice combos or even helping her make use of her timestop without it running out.

Ultimately, while it feels like the time-stop would be the main concept for the set, Tomoyo feels more like a set based around teleportation. It's the teleportation that ends up being what's really cool to read about the set. It allows for things like teleporting during a smash, or a unique projectile recovery which is a neat concept. There's other cool ideas presented throughout independent that tie into the idea of a time-based set, like the unique delayed damage on DSmash. A lot of care was clearly taken in the set to keep her from ever feeling broken with her powers! Unfortunately, I think this lends her to being overbalanced in a way that keeps her from feeling like she gets to flourish with her unique powers. A solid set that I feel has a lot of room for expansion, or at least the ideas can be.
We don't get too many Pokesets anymore, and we really don't get many Fakemon / CAP sets at all, so it's a nice treat getting to read Cyclohm by bubbyboytoo bubbyboytoo . So far the only set of yours I've read this contest is Robobot Kirby which I gave my thoughts on a good while back, and I think Cyclohm handily takes pole position over him. Cyclohm is a great combination of being made with an excellent understanding of Smash's general gameplay while bringing in a solid, creative toolkit for stage control. Cyclohm is really fun in how he manipulates foes around the stage, and his four Specials all contribute nicely to a really sound gameplan. Cyclohm is also on the 'shorter' side, even though it clocks in at 10k+ words, and it's really refreshing to read sets that shed a lot of extra weight for a focused strategy.

Cyclohm is smartly written so that much of the set can be intuited as having important interactions with the toolkit. Cyclohm nudges his clouds around the stage through his attacks, so every hitbox has a purpose beyond just landing hits and comboing. We even get special interactions among the standards, such as DAir having a unique landing effect and impact on the dragon's clouds, DSmash's Electric Terrain effect, and dash serving as an essential tool when used in conjunction with Cyclohm's Twisters. The main issue the set has is wanting more of it, as there's plenty of room to be expanded on with the tools there. There's plenty that comes to mind but having Cyclohm be able to aim Thunderbolts beyond just up and down would be a cool tool for pressure and combos as an example. Also had the thought while reading of clouds potentially braking a foe's knockback by some amount, allowing Cyclohm to catch up to them and turn more moves into combos. Admittedly, the latter idea is already performed to some degree by catching a foe with a Twister, but just like throwing out ideas in case they can even inspire future set-making.

Cyclohm is a really solid set that knows what it wants to do with its tools and does it! There's not too much for me to say about the set, but that's because it's pretty tightly written and doesn't take any huge risks. It hits a nice sweetspot of definitely pushing what we'd see in Smash Bros. with the construct manipulation while not overstepping boundaries into an overly complex or cluttered moveset. Good work, bubby, I am excited to read Polterkitty and interested the directions you'll take sets next contest.
Opening up a moveset and being presented with just short of one hundred pages is intimidating to say the least, but Ty by Almand Almand has shaved years from my life just for opening the set. Now, thankfully Ty is deceptively long; moves are broken up by page, increasing that count by a lot, and a fair number of words are dedicated to either templates or numbers isolated from sentences, meaning it's not quite like reading a few chapters of a book. Don't let that fool you, Ty is still an in depth set for a Very weapon switching mechanic. With 8 boomerangs and 3 robots, plus the ability to mix and match boomerangs, only hold one, or be unarmed, there's no shortage of variety in Ty, lending to a lot of different frame and damage breakdowns. Ty actually does a good job of making these options feel different, and adding an actual element of mixing boomerangs being really nice for gameplay while also not making the set overly bloated (a funny thing to say about a hundred page set, perhaps).

First thing I'll mention in passing is that I'd recommend reading my comment for Kupa's skekMal as he's another character who can throw his weapons to limit his moveset to one or no blades. Not because I don't want to repeat all that information, but because... well, actually yeah I just don't want to. It's very comparable where basically I think a set should justify a character being unarmed being so weak, or else make the unarmed version more... more. Most sets like that just leave unarmed characters as awkward and smaller, the case for skekMal a bit and definitely a lot with Ty. Another area I think I'd like beefed up would be the Power Bunyips. Ty has three of them and they stick around for a good while, but are just there for some defense and two new attacks for Ty. The attacks are cool, particularly with how the Lifter Bunyip plays into the combo game, but since they're such a major stage element once they're out it would be cool if they had unique interactions when hit by a boomerang or the USpec, just as two quick examples that come to mind. After they're introduced to the set they're just sort of... there, and it would be cool to see them integrated deeper.

Something else I can say I'd like to see (although for Ty specifically it might be a bit of a nightmare with the variety of projectiles) would be more detailing on combos. We get a sample of your vision at the beginning of the moveset where you throw out a handful of 'rang configurations (the double kaboomerang being my favorite description) but another way to build on the set would explain how different inputs play off the different boomerangs into other parts of the set. This does come up time to time, but generally I think the average user finds the author listing off some combos more useful to knowing how the set works than a ton of frame data. I'm also not saying to get rid of the frame data or anything, it's not a detractor in the set and clearly doesn't stop you from finishing sets or anything, but having those more 'narrative' elements help make sets feel complete.

I also want to say that Ty is a fun set to read. You've got an excellent writing style that's really entertaining, and even if not outright funny then lively. Despite some moves having up to 17 frame data 'windows' the writing never feels dry. It's clear, concise, and engaging to a reader which is something that's particularly hard to develop in MYM. Even though Ty goes to nearly 26k words (maybe more, I don't remember), I would have been willing to read even more of him, and have even suggested areas to beef him up. I think I can say without any doubt that you've made the most comprehensive and probably best Smash Bros. set that Ty has had or will ever had. Excellent work!
Daisy by WeirdChillFever WeirdChillFever is definitely the best Daisy we've had, and there's plenty of Daisy sets in MYM. The set has a unique take on stage control that encourages utilizing her Gardens for movement rather than camping. Unfortunately, Daisy has no Final Smash, and therefore I can only rate her 1/10, I'm sorry, please try again next year...

...Anyways, as I said Daisy gets away well with only having her one projectile and a handful of constructions that allow her to manipulate herself more than even the foe, with the different colors of flowers throughout the set giving her a variety of mobility options. This makes Daisy quite aggressive and feels athletic, especially when you factor in her trick-performance and the speed boost she gets from them. This set does an excellent job of taking various canon Mario and Daisy abilities and combining them into a set that uses those tools in their own ways.

Something I wish from Daisy is for a heavier focus on another mechanic beyond just the Gardens. I think having Daisy operate more directly around the Superball would play into her sport-theming well. She has access to baseball, tennis, stupid golf, etc. A secondary recovery where she rushes forward to serve a Superball back, for instance, would encourage better utilization and control of the projectile. Maybe she can reflect projectiles in general through her racket moves, and this could also give her a boost the same way performing a trick does. The set also begins to falter during the Aerials and Grab Game, filling very functionalist roles. One of the aspects of Cuttlefish I praised was how every move feels like it's trying to be the coolest move in the set, and it would be neat to see Daisy try that. One example would be for her Parkour throw; having her use it in her Flower Garden could change the animation and knockback based on the color of the garden and change the throw's purpose! Just areas like that where I think a lot of the later inputs could better integrate the tools of the set.

This is still a perfectly solid Daisy set, although I think Cuttlefish is the clear dominating force between the two sets. It's nice to have a good Daisy set and it'll be great to remember it next contest while reading the three Princess Daisy sets that'll end up being posted.
Ditto by Almand Almand is quite the trip that lived up to the expectations I had from other readers' reactions! Ty was very very grounded in the source material, creating a set that squeezed every drop of his home games out into set form. Ditto seems to be what happens when you take that template off with some of the most wild and baffling moves I've seen for a character. You've done a commendable job with how you've planned out every detail of Ditto's set; how the moves are copied and can be locked in or stored as TMs, the sleep / stun / dizzy mechanic that can be swapped out to increase those move uses, a fully functional set designed to integrate with any copied moves. It's a lot to take in but it's still really digestible and you've done well at making these ideas clear. I do agree with Froy that I think the end result is an incredibly cluttered UI, but I don't actually mind it too much since you'll just be glancing at it for a refresher normally or to check you and your foe's states. I also agree that the TM would be hard to see as described but again this is a smaller thing and could be fixed by having the copied move character's face take up the whole TM except the rim to see charge, and then put in the UI input describing image on there big enough to generally see.

When the set isn't busy having one of the more elaborate move-copying mechanics around, it's making sure Ditto's default set is really fun and memorable. Even without copying foes Ditto has a really distinct movepool that plays off of Ditto's anime appearance cranked to 11 (should have turned into a book, though 😔). Ditto's own moveset has its entire own thing going on, allowing him to fish for status effects with his moves. This is a huge step up from Ty where I brought up making sure his rangless set has it's own identity, and Ditto really excels here. The attack scaling and the TM mechanic also mean that Ditto mirror matches aren't nerfed at all, as they can copy moves they already have but make them even stronger which is a whole new set of mindgames!

One of the things I wish for Ditto is similar to Ty in that I wish the set covered combo potential more. I won't repeat all the same stuff here since you've just read that comment, but I will say it might be as much a nightmare for Ditto as Ty given the variety of moves Ditto can have at any point. Some general ideas with iconic staple moves or inputs that have generally similar purpose would be nice, and we even get that a bit in the throws where you talk about how, as an example, Ivysaur copied DThrow might not lead into Vine Whip the same way as the original.

One aspect I really like about Ditto is that he doesn't encourage super defensive play, at least not to start with. Ditto's got to get hit and take damage or go after the foe with the move he wants in order to really get what he wants. This keeps his set from feeling too passive and there's really good incentive for Ditto to not just camp and abuse his item spawns since they can turn into really good attacks if he's careful. Ditto is a really thrilling read that helps keep a MYM staple genre alive with fresh blood. I'm excited to see what you bring to the table for MYM 24 because you've got an insane amount of potential and skill!
Cooking Mama is a much simpler, more straightforward set from Almand Almand , but that's not to say it doesn't have cool things happening in it. Despite staying fairly "in Smash" for the inputs, Cooking Mama is definitely worth a read for how she recontexualizes some canon Smash inputs. The main highlight for the set is Mama's vegetable garden, functionally like Villager's Tree where the move changes stages as her vegetables grow. She can pluck her vegetables up and use them in her set in some neat ways, serving as an item, food, or even a cool addition to the neat Down Smash (even if this leads to said Smash having 6 pages of frame data). I was curious at what a more reined in set by you would look like, and Cooking Mama fills that role nicely.

While on the simpler side, Cooking Mama's attacks are pretty fun! FTilt hitting on both sides of Mama and serving as a command grab is fun, BAir has the unique cutting effect with the landing hitbox, and I really enjoy the multiple hits of the different Smash attacks. The set does an incredibly good at job at staying in character with Cooking Mama while still allowing those moves to be really standout, better than if she was just stabbing around with a knife all over the place.

I think there's a serious missed opportunity with how the grab animation and the pummel works. I think it would have been really cool if Mama's unique pummel allowed her tie up foes more and more in the scarf. Throws could then be built around this idea; the FThrow, for instance, could throw foes further if they had been pummeled more because there would be more scarf to unwrap. Other throws might have the opposite effect; the more the foe is wrapped up the harder it is to free them, so they end up closer to Mama after more pummels for combo setups. I think of all the areas of the set the grab game for Mama is the weakest and I think this would be an easy enough mechanic to slot in to help give it some more identity.

My comment ends up being a bit briefer I feel, but with Cooking Mama there's not nearly as much to talk about as Ty or Ditto as she tends to be a simpler set. Basically I like the base of what's here and love how a lot of the moves are characterized and work. The set definitely falls off a bit towards the end, notably in the grab game, but never dives into bad at any point. Between your three sets you've had an exceptionally good contest that you should definitely be proud of!
While Armano faked us out with the promise of a tether set, Kiyohime by Katapultar Katapultar is here to scratch that itch! Pretty uniquely, this yandere uses her tail as her tether, making sure she keeps her objects of desire close (but not TOO close), unless she really wants them to be. Her ability to adjust the tether is pretty interesting, utilizing her crossups and rolls to physically wrap around the foe and draw them nearer and nearer. The set has fun with allowing Kiyohime to be pulled along by her tail upon launching an opponent, useful for both follow-ups and for canceling out of her own moves (the latter being a really cool idea for some of her longer, multihit moves).

My biggest problem with Kiyohime I'll throw out right at the beginning here: I found Down Special nearly non-sensical in description. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting some things but even after reading through the moves quite a few times I had a number of issues beyond just clarification in chat. The move starts out plenty fine, a big radial burst attack, sounds good and goes well with Kiyohime's ability to restrict a foe's movement tighter and tighter. Cool! We get a unique status for being struck by this move while tethered allowing for follow ups, neat! Then we get some necessary limits, with foes being released after the move is used and not able to be trapped again for a bit. However, this is immediately followed up by saying that tethered foes are extended out to the full tether length after getting this hit, and I assume this means for foes who don't enter the pin status but it's very left open to interpretation.

The move doesn't end there, however, and Kihoyime gets a nice buff if she hits no foes, catching on fire and spreading it around the stage like a certain other Fate set. Again, this works and gives foes a reason to not just avoid Kiyohime, especially while they're tethered to her as the fire will spread to them. The move continues, and if Kiyohime doesn't use Down Special for seven seconds then she gains a visual indicator that her next use of the move will be buffed. It's not clarified here if that's seven seconds after using it at all or if it counts from the beginning of a match / stock. This effect gives Kiyohime super-armor when she finally uses the move, which is a fun feature which turns this functionally into a trading counter! I'll just post the next section of the move because I don't really know how to break it down but I have issue understanding this part as well:

"Not only that, its base knockback is increased by 1/8ths of the knockback, potentially causing Down Special to kill earlier. The boost might not seem like much, but the knockback is based on how much Kiyohime would receive, not her opponent: the stronger the move and higher her percent, the more knockback DSpec will deal and the earlier she can pin opponents from her tether! Of course, she has to survive til some 100% and beyond for it to become really meaningful."

This is really confusing to me, and the most I can figure is it's referring to tanking through an attack as if it were used as a counter? It's amiguous what the phrase 'based on how much Kiyohime would receive, not her opponent' means at least with how I'm reading it. After that it seems that she loses access to her powered up move another 7 seconds after it's available. Beyond that I assume it cycles again, coming back 7 seconds later once more? There's a lot of questions that this one move has caused me and I think a lot of the writing here needs touched up. I know this is only one move but it's really messily written in the details compared to pretty much all your other sets and really needs another look.

I also think a few of the attacks are conceptually disjointed, one big one standing out to me being DTilt. DTilt itself is a perfectly serviceable move, a swipe with a fan that has windboxes that allow her to pull fighters and even her fireballs back in towards her. I don't even think the windbox pull is too big of a problem as its got less range than her default tail tether, an even more effective crowd control tool. However, for some reason this also allows her to essentially cross-up a tethered foe and shrink their leash. There's no accompanying animation involving the foe or the tail, which causes some confusion as to where the extra tail length has disappeared to.

There's not only bad in this set at all. I already mentioned how a lot of the tools Kiyohime has are really fun in how they work with her tether, but the set as a whole feels much sloppier and less cohesive than the rest of your offerings this contest, unfortunate as I feel like this idea has a lot of potential and does a good job of making a moveset that is itselfyandere. The actual tethering is pretty standard, with a lot of the set's experimentation in other areas like the really unique pivot grab she has, complete with its own (admittedly brief) throws. I think the set could focus on giving the tether itself more identity given how much that plays into the personalization. While I think this is your weakest set of the contest, it's still got interesting ideas throughout and I'd like to see some of those brought back for later movesets.
Dragonmaid Chame by Katapultar Katapultar may be the slowest of the maids to have arrived in MYM, but she is certainly not the least! I really think Chame benefited heavily by getting finished after MYM 22's Dragonmaids. Chame has the exact kind of focus that I think would have benefited her compatriots. She doesn't turn fully into a dragon on her recovery, she doesn't spawn in furniture to break down, she's here to do one thing: clean. Chame embodies the idea that these are maids better than her sister sets. The passive cleaning mechanics has a ton of value in Chame's set as they boost all her Specials in really nice ways. This kind of passive stage setup and maintenence is always a treat and at times I'm even reminded of Aki with how attacks weave in and out of the clean parts of the stage. She also has more than ample tools for her to keep the stage clean despite the foe's efforts.

It's hard for me to even quantify everything that makes this set such a success for me. Chame herself has a great choice in many of her moves between going for stage cleaning or even undoing her own cleaning (I won't tell Hauskee, don't worry). For being essentially just one central mechanic with the cleaning Chame gets a lot out of it. A lot of my favorite sets take this level of both focus and expansion of ideas and Chame here pulls it off so nicely. It's great that she can knock foes away with certain attacks that will have them clean for her, it's really well done how undoing her own cleaning can be a benefit thanks to how her Specials work. Most of the set is done through passive effects or soft interactions, allowing the set to flourish with its simplicity and hit the perfect sweetspot of being both really inuitive and really clever.

I would like to provide some aspect of criticism still, no matter how much I like the set, and I do think a few of the inputs come up as a bit too brief. UAir is the most notable example, but both Dash Attack and BAir also come up a bit short. These aren't even bad inputs as they play well into her gameplay, but they are the areas where the set falls the most. There's also the fact that with as focused as the set is there's only so much she can do. But honestly Chame takes her tools and really uses them to their near-full potential..

I would say you took the criticisms of the Dragonmaids to heart and used them to produce what ends up being my favorite of your sets this contest (and one of my favs this contest overall!). This is the kind of set I want to see more of as it's an excellent compliment to the much more complex and interaction-heavy sets. Cleaning spaces are done brilliantly well with this set, there's plenty of cool tools to use with them like USpec, NSpec, and a particular favorite of mine being B-Throw. A time bomb effect that stops the foe from breaking down her setup while also encouraging them to stay in it to avoid the hitbox is really synergetic with the rest of the kit and how it plays into Chame's projectiles and mobility. Incredible work with this set, Kat, and I'm glad I could end reading your contest on such a high note!
Polterkitty by bubbyboytoo bubbyboytoo trades away the stage control elements that we saw in Cyclohm for having a more melee and mechanically focused set. The idea behind this set is pretty rad, actually. Polterkitty sneaking around the stage and stalking the foe results in having some pretty unique and cool tools. Her mobility is pretty unique, not being super fast but being super flexible instead. I really enjoy having a Special dedicated to just a slow, superarmored approach walk that protects from projectiles. This is a neat tool that's obviously balanced by being nothing else. You just approach the foe. Menacingly! There's even the foresight to have leaving this state perform a little hit, otherwise it would be pretty difficult to capitalize off as she'd never end with any kind of advantage. The highlight (and, well, the entirety) of the set here is the melee. This is a great kind of set to write for improvement because there's no crutches to beef the set up, you're just relying on your gamesense and visualization to make the set work. And it does work! Even a lot of the standards have pretty neat followups or options, like DTilt and USmash!

I actually have a suggestion that came to me while writing that I think would be really fun to play with for Polterkitty's Up Special. I think it would be really cool if she could use it to phase through the bottom of a stage for a completely unique recovery. As is, Polterkitty takes up a lot of horizontal space most of the time and with her lightweight can pretty easily be knocked away. This would be an excellent tool that would make her current serviceable recovery really pop while also playing into her playstyle of skulking and hunting the foe. (This paragraph is short because it's the first part of the comment I wrote so I wouldn't forget) ((and these parentheticals are helping boost the size!)) You could even allow her to act out of this into an attack or even DSpec's jumping hitbox.

Where I find Polterkitty the weakest is that she doesn't actually have too much going for her beyond a really tight melee game. It's really rare in MYM to have a character who has no projectiles, no advanced states or statuses, no constructs or minoins, and it does show a little bit in Polterkitty as she has an uphill battle to go from 'solid' to 'exciting'. You've really pushed the envelope in keeping her as, well, a big cat, and I just think she could use one big 'wow' moment to really sell the set, whatever that could end up being. Unrelatedly, another idea I had while reading would have some kind of move that lets Polterkitty steal items from the foe given that's the impetus of her fights with Luigi. Perhaps this could even be incorporated in the grab game, an area where the ideas go from pushing the envelope to a bit more standard (though we still get the carrying and effect throws).

Across your sets this contest I think you've gotten some great practice in and you're primed to combine the strengths of these sets for future MYMs (maybe someday we'll get Futaba 😔)! I think Polterkitty is handily better than Robobot but ultimately Cyclohm has just a bit more going for it so it takes the lead over our feline friend, but the competition is pretty close and this is still a set to be proud of!
I'm pretty sure the last set by GolisoPower GolisoPower I commented on was Snom, so it's nice to get back for more commentary for Judgement. I'm a little burnt out right now, so do forgive me if this comment runs a little short and/or nonsensical! It's been a while since I read Snom but I'm sensing some similarities in terms of the kinds of criticisms I'd have with this set. The set feels like you had a handful of ideas and put those on inputs somewhat in a vacuum, ending with not a versatile toolkit but more of a bunch of loose tools. One of the big things that would help develop the sets more would be building the moves along with each other. Having a kickable projectile can be cool, and the Chains of Sin are just straight up cool temporary walls that Judgement can really leave around the stage. Immediately, I was shocked that there's just no interaction between these freely placeable walls and her main projectile here. Having her be able to, say, kick the rock into these chains and have it bounce around the walls at the expense of their durability would be a great way to build the two moves off of each other.

I know FA brought up how moves chain into each other not feeling proven, as a way to put it, just having two distinct moves and saying 'yeah, they work together'. It's kind of a tricky thing to pinpoint and analyze, but one of the ways I figure out how to make combos in my set is figure out what moves are going to be generally useful combo starters (let's say UTilt). I detail out UTilt's damage, knockback, and angle before planning out the other moves. Then, using the power of 🌈 imagination 🌈 i think of animations for attacks that could follow up on that, like coming up with a comboing NAir, FAir, and BAir. I'd then go and detail those moves out, and see if how I envision those would lead into anything else. I think Judgement and your future sets in general would benefit by picking a few structural bases, say the Chains of Sin, the Success Warp, and a few combo starters, and then focus on building the moves around those ideas. It's not the perfect solution, but I've found it can be really reliable and would help make the set cohesive.

Judgment is definitely serviceable for an early set, but it does leave a lot of room for improvement. There's also some weird elements to the attacks like the spikes changing based on characters landing on the stage or the FTilt having a counter hitbox that show promise for expanding your ideas in a MYM way. It's not that Judgement doesn't have unique ideas or concepts for a moveset, it's just that she hasn't built her set around those ideas, so instead they sit as quirky moves in a somewhat mundane set. Hopefully my advice will help you shape future sets because after both Judgement and Snom I can tell you've got unique ideas to work with!
Broly by Rychu Rychu is a pretty extreme fighter who is hard designed into comboing thanks to his unique Saiyan Rage mechanic, leading many of his moves to become extremely swingy in their performance. I kind of like the idea of a character who has absurd combo potential with his devastating moves but leaves himself wide open on misses. It feels very DragonBall, I say as someone who hasn't watched it. I think the idea can be refined a bit as Broly exclusively uses it for 'make sure you hit and don't miss and you're fine' without really exploring other areas of that. This leads to him having a pretty abysmal neutral and disadvantage state, I would think, as he essentially has the first two hits of jab and NAir in order to open foes up to attacks. I think Broly should have a few more 'weaker' tools so he can actually protect himself and manage to play when he's not currently hitting the foe. There's also the really bizarre choice of having Broly's FAir put him in freefall, something I'm not sure I've really ever seen before. Notably, unlike UAir FAir is not a recovery move in any way and just goes to polarize how strong but risky his attacks are even further.

The characterization here is great, but I do echo Froy's sentiments about suggestions in terms of bringing Broly to more playable levels, making his long range options stronger while lowering some other moves so they can operate more as bread-and-butters. For a set like this I actually think it would neat if he had a safer grab so that he had a reliable way to go into a majority of his moves for at least one successful hit. Beyond that it's up to the player to use the Saiyan Rage mechanic well if they want to pile on damage. I do have another slight issue with the set in terms of execution and that's that I'm not sure how well Broly will actually manage to perform this devestating combos on foes with how powerful most of his attacks are. Most of his standards are kill moves, and Broly could use just a bit more mobility (maybe a teleport-style approach?) if he'd want to catch up to foes being knocked so far away.

There's still some interesting stuff in Broly, and I like the core idea of an extreme brawler who puts full force into everything. I just think this results in a totally weak gamestate for Broly who'll end up probably fishing for the same combos every time instead of having the dynamic combo game I think you were intending when writing.
Rounding up the Rychu Rychu sets this contest with Phoenix, I think he winds up being more of a success than Broly with the ideas of the set being IMO better built upon. The main ideas with Phoenix here are his credits, headshots, and comboing his different fire arms into each other thanks to a unique ammo mechanic that gives almost every standard it's own ammo count. While this is a pretty simple mechanic I think it's really intuitive and bats away the normal problem ammo mechanics have by just letting Phoenix choose between sustaining the fire of his attacks and have to go into a reload or mix his combos up to keep his bullets fresh. I actually think Phoenix could use more incentive to risk getting that reload mechanic off, and I think having bullets deal more damage as they're used consecutively would encourage there being more of a choice to players. That or the number of weapons could be shrunken down and have multiple inputs share a weapon / ammo (kind of like how Byleth's weapons are tied to the inputs).

I really like the idea of how Phoenix's recovery works. While you can react to your knockback for a more traditional way of using it to recover you could also set it up just in case to combine with it blocking off the foe from chasing you down if knocked past it. It's a little short in duration to really capitalize it, and I might give it a few more seconds of lasting so you could pull this off. I like the idea of it being a hard commit if you want it prepared too, making a whole side of the stage unreliable for killing foes off of and forcing foes to switch it up. The lingering fire healing Phoenix adds to this style of stage control as well, though the result might end up with Phoenix becoming a bit campy in order to heal up. This is still well-balanced by only being able to replace this with a hefty 500 Credit cost and having complete predictability where he'll recover.

Phoenix feels like he's really holding back on his mechanics, pretty noticeably the DSpec which serves here mostly as a second recovery (and another one which requires forethought). We get the details that the second Phoenix will even complete attacks before vanishing, and while I'm not well-versed in Valorant I feel like there's potential to make this a really special move. Maybe the Run It Back Phoenix could encourage bigger plays, capitalizing off the idea that even when he dies the stock will continue. Maybe this results in some kind of armor, or maybe Run It Back Phoenix gets an increased headshot rate allowing him to build up Credits way faster and getting foes to play more hastily to stop this.

Phoenix is still a pretty simple set but I actually really like the core here and I think it works a lot better in practice than Broly does. The basics of the set play well into themselves without needing overly explained, something that smaller sets have as a general strength over longer ones. That said, I think Phoenix has some unrealized potential here as I've covered, but hopefully you continue this chain into next contest and improve upon it!
I've made no secret about wanting more Dark Souls sets, and the Chosen Undead is one of my most wanted potential DLC fighters, so I'm glad to see GolisoPower GolisoPower take a swing at it! Right off the bat I want to say this set is a huge step up from Judgement and Snom in terms of creativity and realization. Chosen Undead plays very much by his own rules, and while I think there are some big red flags and issues in this set I still think this is more the direction you should take sets. Stamina is a pretty core idea in Dark Souls so I can understand going for that as a unique ammo mechanic for Chosen Undead. He goes really extreme with this, losing stamina during nearly any action (much like Dark Souls) in exchange for having some of the most insane defensive options I've seen in a set. The balance here is that Chosen Undead has to play a bit carefully with his slow attacks, reminding me a little of Broly, and making sure he always has the stamina to move and defend himself.

That said, with any set that changes the rules so much there's definitely concerns with how these rules are balanced. It's difficult to imagine how Chosen Undead would stack up in the actual crucible of Smash Bros. He's got far and away the best roll in the game along with a unique mobile shield and a devastating parry leading to riposte. This swings pretty hard, though, as the Chosen Undead will eat through his stamina like crazy through dashing, attacking, rolling, shielding, jumping, etc... during which his defenses are dropped pretty harshly and he can't really defend himself. It's really difficult to weigh these options with each other to see where he really stands. One of the end results of Stamina and the input placements mean that Chosen Undead is most consistent in the air. Most of his aerials are spells which take no Stamina. Additionally, moving through the air takes no stamina nor does airdodging. This means he can hop into the air even with the last of his Stamina to have a solid projectile heavy moveset without completely losing his defenses. This isn't a terrible idea but it also feels really out of character for a Chosen Undead set, given most combat is performed on the ground or going to the ground in the series.

A lot of the actual moves themselves seem really powerful, particularly Riposte which does a frankly unrealistic 72.5% damage with a crumple. This is hilariously strong, more powerful than a Final Smash, and completely busted. I do like the idea of including Riposte as a mechanic but I think it was made way too powerful and polarizing here, especially as Chosen Undead's FTilt serves as a shield breaker. Honestly, lowering the damage significantly, perhaps weaker than even a tilt, but still keeping the crumple effect would help with this. Chosen Undead keeps his advantage for riposting but doesn't completely 180 every single matchup out of nowhere (especially with the moving shield allowing him to position himself while defending better for a parry). There's also a lot of projectiles in the set which could prove really annoying against a character with such strong defenses, especially as using the spells doesn't drain his Stamina.

While I have my fair share of complaints and concerns about Chosen Undead, and I don't think it's necessarily a traditionally good set, it's got some wild experimentation that makes it a really exciting read in the ideas it has, something I would have wanted from your other sets I've read. This is the energy I want to see you take into future MYMs, and hopefully a better sense of balancing will come with it. This is a damn interesting set, though, and I'd love to see you get back to this idea once you've had more practice too.
 
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Katapultar

Smash Lord
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It seems Gnorc was intended to be a more ambitious set given the cut minion content (and NSpec mentioning gem colours being relevant to his playstyle), which helps to bring the set's final design choices into perspective. I enjoy a good item set (we don't get many heavy item-based sets) and the pertrification makes for a decent base, but I did notice the set can be under-detailed at times (D-Smash's main hitbox, for instance, and its applications as a melee attack). This can be great for cutting down on wordiness, but I think the gems could benefit from a little more detail to flesh them out: how far and fast they travel, for instance? Do they bounce off opponents, or do they pierce them? That would be pretty relevant given the set mentions Gnorc can Z-drop his gems, which is pretty powerful for combos in Smash and would definitely make his aerials cooler if this was mentioned. To make the green and yellow gems relevant, why not make them deal knockback? Maybe the green gem could deal backwards and upwards knockback that could lead into your beloved B-air when z-dropped.

The melee is serviceable, but not quite as satisfying as Mami's, largely because there aren't the mix-ups, 50/50s, RARs and big play-off from the Specials. Maybe talking about how some moves could get mileage out of petrification to combo better could help a little? I also noticed there's a decent amount of horizontal knockback in the set, and thought about how Gnastly tends to run away character-wise. That would be hard to implement in Smash, but what if Gnasty could use Side Special or item throwing out of turning around from a dash (or jumping out of a dash), and doing so made the attack stronger? For instance, the start-up lag of his petrification could get cut a little, he throws his item farther and it gets a little damage multiplier. This could even work out of the Dash Attack if you cross-up the foe, forcing the foe to chase after Gnorc like they're Spyro! Gnorc would be limited to only how much stage he has to run along. And Gnorc does have ranged attacks to keep the foe away if they approach him.

Minor notes: Gnorc probably shouldn't be able to dash while using tapped Side Special - not specifically mentioned, but implied. The above-average hitstun and being able to move make me think it's a good approach move and for opening up foes that could work with his melee game. And perhaps Gnorc should be limited to 1 D-Smash boulder at a time, as the move is stated to be pretty fast. Thinking about it, Gnorc's D-Smash, slow B-air and N-air only hitting in front of him make me think that Gnorc doesn't have a lot of defenses behind him, which could play into chasing after him.

Gnorc is something of a high WV for me at the moment, but he does have potential and it wouldn't take a lot to make additions to the gems if you felt like it (though there are sets to read, and like others you might feel like working on something new). Also, as I mentioned in the Discord, his writing is excellent and entertaining, very fun to see after not having read a Slavic set for nearly a year. That alone definitely made Dodongo Gnorc worth the wait! Looking forward to what you throw out next contest.
 

FrozenRoy

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Rock Me Amadeus (Amadeus Wolfgeist BKupa666 BKupa666 )

It's definitely really nice to see Luigi's Mansion sets again, I still remember the old days with Jarvis Top 10ing and all. Luigi's Mansion is the kind of thing I associate with you, so it was kinda cool to see you come back to the franchise.

Wolfgeist's got a pretty good base with his League of Legends three-hit piano mechanic, allowing Wolfgeist to store up uses of his potent piano for special attacks by hitting the foe three times in quick succession. This is a pretty fun idea! I saw some worries about this being too much for Wolfgeist in disadvantage, or too hard to get off, having read the set I think it is mostly fine. I do wonder if the timeframe to hit it could be a bit larger, to allow Wolfgeist to do 50/50s or traps more easily and keep the three hit nature going. It's true that Wolfgeist has a more poor disadvantage due to this, but I don't know that it is THAT bad, and having a bad disadvantage state is a perfectly reasonable weakness to have. It works nicely on a character who seems to be going for both a combo character and more of a spacer/camper, which gives him options for a strong advantage in many situations compared to other characters, to therefor have a more poor disadvantage state if opponents fight through it. Down Special also feels like it gives him a fairly strong tool when in disadvantage that helps out anyway.

Personally, a larger issue I have with the design is that I do not feel like the combo-based way to generate the piano moves and playstyle is as deep or integrated as it could be. Wolfgeist basically has two focuses in his set: Combos, and long range poking / spacing, with the combos having more focus. While both of thee are enjoyable, I found they didn't mesh well and that neither were as expansive as they could be, which is probably my main issue with the set. The combo game is solid but it is pretty basic, which in particular feels a bit off as with the way the piano works, his stat makeup and the focus in the text makes me think this was a more primary focus.

To expand on my issue with the combo game more than just "it could be deeper": Wolfgeist has plenty of small combos, but they can feel a bit similar, and there isn't much it feels like in the way of long but risky combo options. That's fine given the spacing, but where it comes into more of an issue is the piano, which given it is enabled by performing combos and Wolfgeist has this combo design, but they don't really interact too much. He does have some piano options to set up, but I was surprised at how the piano doesn't work into the combo game at all. As an easy example of what I mean, imagine if Wolfgeist's piano had a combo ending option (let's say, IDK, the piano rushing forward) but it was laggy for a combo ender. So Wolfgeist can only get it off some specific 3-hit combos or at low percents because otherwise the foe won't be in position given the lag, OR he can get it off 2-hit combos but that requires him to build up piano meter first + means he doesn't get a third hit to build up more piano meter (since the piano can't build itself) OR Wolfgeist can intentionally drop for a 50/50 on, say, an air dodge read at the cost of losing true combo damage but get potentially more power. Not only does this give Wolfgeist combo stuff that is more "unique" to him as it revolves around the nature of how his piano is gained and a construct, but stuff like this ultimately felt minor or lacking in the set. The set also doesn't always consider or take advantage of Wolfgeist having the ability to use the piano during inputs it feels like. For one complaint on that end that is more a balance thought: Down Special should be able to go right into a piano move, right? Down Special -> Piano Up Special during it feels like it should be incredibly hard to dodge if DSpec hits.

It also feels like the spacing could be better integrated in with the more aggressive aspects, in particular when considering some stuff like knockback angles. Given how Wolfgeist's Down Special works (a spotlight from on top), Wolfgeist would particularly enjoy combo finishers that send at high vertical angles that allow him to get under them with a Down Special for catching a landing. In turn, that means that spacing moves that would cover a lot of options to try and escape those scenarios would be powerful for Wolfgeist as it forces the opponent to try and land through his Down Special's potential counter. In turn, using Down Special to instead "wall" off escape routes would be a powerful option. But Wolfgeist has no tools really to end with the foe in this vertical space: Up Smash is a kill move and isn't really any kind of traditional combo finisher (note the text focusing on Goob interactions and Down Special being the option to hit it), Up Tilt is a standard combo starter and Up Aerial is almost entirely devoted to drag down options. Down Tilt has synergy with these options, but as an additional tool for trapping landings rather than flowing out of his combo game to begin a good landing area. Stuff like this is what I mean. Another example would be that Wolfgeist could use a combo ender option or attack that sends at a low angle to begin tech chases to flow into his multihit jab or his Dash Attack which is designed to perform tech chases. Forward Throw is a good move that helps flow into it: I would have liked a grounded or aerial attack that also could work into it with more specific design. Up Throw also sets opponents up vertically...but Wolfgeist's grab is explicitly laggy, not something to work into the combo game and devotes more time to an option to throw forward than to consider what could happen from the up-hitting scenario (I was surprised Down Special didn't come up here). It all just feels somewhat like "functionally disconnected good moves" rather than weaving together.

This all might seem somewhat negative, so I'll add in some thoughts on the fact I did enjoy various individual moves of the set, and I like the piano mechanic itself. The Piano Up Special and Piano Down Special felt like highlights of the piano attacks, particularly with Piano DSpec's angles. I am pretty fond of the Down Special's "auto-parry", mindgames and offensive options and thought it was a fairly brilliant attack. The way the Goobs work for Wolfgeist's combo game is one of the best and most integrated parts of it and I like how they can linger or be launched around with projectile tennis options. That's some great fun! Down Tilt had some good options and a fun "dust cloud" move, as another attack I thought was fairly good, and I thought the way Wolfgeist's jab finisher worked was neat. The characterization of this set is also quite on point and it gets a lot of use out of Wolfgeist's ghostly nature on top of that! One thing I'd say can't be argued is that Wolfgeist got the most of the character's flavor, which is always good to see.

Reginald Broly (Broly Rychu Rychu )

Everyone asks "WHEN BROLY", but nobody ever asks "How Broly"...

Broly's got a pretty interesting core with the Saiyan Rage mechanic, basically letting Broly have really strong combo attacks at the cost of huge punishment if whiffed, but I feel like the execution leaves much to be desired. First off, Broly frequently just has too MUCh punishment for if Saiyan Rage fails to active which makes the attacks too unusable. Forward Tilt has a massive 40 frames of ending lag on whiff, Forward Aerial is flatout helpless if you whiff (although it is also a way too busted attack aside from that, so), stuff like that. I feel like toning down the absurdity on some of Broly's attacks a little in exchange for not making them as absolutely punishing if he misses would be a good idea.

On top of that, I think that Saiyan Rage could have been expanded into a more interesting mechanic with just a small amount of complexity, by making it so that in addition to reducing ending lag it buffs his next ki attack he uses in the next X timeframe. This would encouage Broly to mix in physical and ki attacks, kinda has cool flavor (Broly's rage increasing leads to his monstrous ki attacks becoming even stronger!) and give a bit more to the ki attacks which at times feel bizarrly weak for the attacks, especially since Broly has some monstrously powerful other options (why charge a Down Special to full and try to hit with it when Forward Aerial kills only 5% later?). Some thoughts for what could be done include increased damage/knockback (would be particularly useful for Planet Eraser, which could become a really strong attack foes have to worry about right after a combo in order for Broly to attack behind), starting off partially charged (DSpec?), increased range or speed (a ki attack could become a combo finisher by coming out faster?), changing shape or getting an additional attack / attack aspect to it. I'd also say it feels like using ki attacks more as neutral tools (since they don't worry about Saiyan Rage) while making melee attacks riskier combo starters or the like would be a way to add some more to the game design of the set.

Aside from that, this move has some missing info at times (Down Aerial doesn't list lag for example) which hurts it. Also, Up Tilt is unusably laggy with near-Warlock Punch levels of starting lag and TWO SECONDS of ending lag! I do think the set feels pretty well characterized with brutal, wild and powerful attacks or ki strikes. It's just that there isn't a ton with the base concept, I would say Phoenix was a better outing in my opinion.

Tenth Life (Polterkitty bubbyboytoo bubbyboytoo )

Polterkitty, IMO, is a pretty good show of how much you've grown Bubby! The basics of the melee game pretty obviously feel more natural here, continuing off building it up with Zeraora. And compared to Morlagren, a set that felt like it didn't really utilize the unique body aspects of the character, Polterkitty get much better use out of its spectral nature. Before digging into it, I would definitely say Polterkitty feels like a new high point for Bubby compared to Zeraora and Cyclohm...but I do still need to read Robobot Armor.

First off, I rather enjoyed the Specials! Neutral Special was a very clever move to get the flavor it has, and I thought the double-faceted use between a Ridley Side Special style attack and a scaredy cat defensive option not only feels like it has interesting implementation for gameplay (going in to attack Polterkitty during NSpec can be a real gamble!) but has really good flavor (lunging at vulnerable prey that is far, but turning tail and running if they come close to fight back!). Side Special feels like it should be faster for better usability, but I do like how it works into the playstyle overall, Down Special I think works very well with it as a combination of defensive options (Polterkitty has a lot of that "attack + defense" feel, very fitting) and as a fun "peek-a-boo" kinda attack on its own, able to slip under attacks to strike or as an odd movement option in addition to the stall than fall properties which I should note feel nice and ghostly.

After that, we basically get a well constructed "tricky combo" style character with some quite enjoyable moves in there. Up Tilt, I thought this was a good way to mix up your standard Up tilt combo move and being behind Polterkitty has some interesting anti-crossup applications, Down Tilt's use as a KO attack that can turn into a mindgame by sacrificing the attack to instead get in with the movement options is appealing, Up Smash has some really fun stuff to think about with all the ways that Polterkitty has between going for the really strong 1-2 option, sneaking in another attack instead that can be a lower damage "true" option or utilize her defensive options to get more against opponents trying to attack against the 2nd hit, good stuff. ForwardArrow praised the Back Aerial in specific and I would agree that it is an exquisite move: The nature of the multihit and its sweetspot work nicely with Polterkitty's multiple spacing options, there's some interesting DI counterplay with the foe, it works nicely with fastfalling or mixing into sweetspots for shield pokes and other movement options, it isn't like "BLOW ME AWAY" but I thought it was a very nice standard move.

I'll also take the moment to say I thought this set had plenty of personality, right from the start with the intro and Polterkitty's animation description of The Wiggle (TM), it feels like you had fun writing this set and like it got a lot of personality out of it!

For a weakness, the grab game while not bad is the most standard grab game you can get, with the combo throw/KO throw/spacer throw/utility throw dynamic in full force. I wasn't sure if I really liked Down Throw, though I suppose it is a modified pitfall throw, and I thought that it was surprisingly lacking in flavor/personality compared to the rest of the set. Wolfgeist had a really great grab game for personality as an example of getting across a ghostly Luigi's Mansion character. The set also can feel like it isn't particularly "innovative", but I thought it was more than solid enough to make up for it, and the Specials actually felt very fresh IMO. It avoided that a lot more than previous sets of yours, I feel. Overall, I thought Polterkitty was a good set, an enjoyable experience, and that it is pretty firmly entrenched on my RV list going into voting. Good work, Bubby!
 

UserShadow7989

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Messages
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Quick Announcement Regarding Editing Period
After some deliberation, we're making a few changes of note. Firstly, there is an adjustment to the schedule:
  • Voting Period will open on January 12th. It will end on January 18th as planned, after one week of voting instead of two.
  • As a result, Editing Period will now continue until January 11th.

Secondly, we've decided to adjust the rules regarding editing sets and voting:
  • Setmakers may continue to edit completed sets during voting period. Edits are closed on the last day before voting.
  • An exception is unfinished 'Dodongo' sets, I.E. sets posted with filler inputs during Submission Period to then be completed during Editing Period. If not finished during Editing Period, a Dodongo set is disqualified from voting as before.
  • During Voting Period, you can edit your Vote List by contacting the Vote Gurus before the end of Voting Period with your updated Vote List.
  • Voting Gurus are an exception: they cannot edit their Vote Lists once submitted, with the new, sole exception to adjust their vote for a set that was edited during the Voting Period.


Note that while you CAN edit your set at the last possible second the day before the last day of voting, that doesn't make it a good idea! If people don't have time to read said edits or adjust their vote list because of how late it happened, that's on you. Still, things happen; sometimes a helpful comment comes in late, sometimes real life rears its ugly head. We understand; just don't take this a invitation to revamp your entire set from scratch at the 11th hour or redo your vote list 100 times over.
 
Last edited:

Smady

Smash Master
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Apr 29, 2007
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K Rool Avenue
Hina
I came into Hina with high expectations and I'd say it easily lived up to all of those when it finally came time to read the set. I didn't know what Hina had in store, but I did remember how fun the scarecrows were when I first read the set's preview long ago, not even realising this would become a fantastic set in the long run. Although I have yet to read Louise, I find it hard to believe it will top this set! It’s just that good.

In the interest of time, I won't go into too much detail on the content of the set, but the basics of it are that Hina can create a scarecrow that shadows her every move like a puppet, while also being able to turn it into a puppet and desync it like Rosalina's Luma. It's a bit of Ice Climbers too given that the scarecrow has largely the same set as Hina, but the ways in which it differs is pretty fascinating. Most of all the balance is top notch with Hina's scarecrows never being allowed to break the game at a minimum, but the set uses its large word count to conceptualise the exact details of where Hina fits into the Ultimate metagame. It's almost too much, but not quite, the set definitely had me wondering "is this too long?" but this was largely not an issue because the set really does not waste your time despite its length as it is simply so long from the fact the scarecrows, the brambles, the planters and the way they all interact is appropriately complex for such fun mechanics.

I will get the few negatives out of the way here. I will say I'm not sure Hina is that strong in the metagame as you spelled it out, though I will say that this may be your own convincing that made me think that. You're always cautious to say that a potentially broken move combination with the scarecrows has its own setbacks. Even getting the scarecrow out does require a slightly laggier smashed input, so I'm not sure that's necessary, though I'm not sure what to suggest and it's a minor concern. That said, the amount of unorthodox moves like jab and uair are very fun, but may have the effect of pushing Hina into more of a spot like Zelda where she's reliant on her summon (in Zelda's case the Phantom), while having far more depth and honestly being much better designed than Zelda. That's not necessarily a bad thing mind you, I'm just saying that's not a hugely viable archetype to have not the best frame data on top of some flashier standards/aerials and the set is perhaps a little too cautious at times. However, she has enough tricky frame traps and cancels that this isn't really a big problem, but it's about all I can say that concerned me reading the set.

On the flip side of that pretty small criticism I like the amount of unorthodox moves in the set, and the balance quibbles are just that, it's hard for me to be too critical of them. You do an excellent job milking the set's long word count to amazing detail in how moves like the nair, ftilt, all the smashes work despite being quite creative and potentially super strong in the context of the scarecrows. On the contrary, you're able to make a great case for the setbacks that keep the scarecrows from becoming remotely a balance problem instead. I really love the way the scarecrows are used in so many moves in the set. I especially like some of the more unusual moves to like such as the dash attack and ftilt being packed full of fun/cool animations, with tons of personality.

The personality of the set definitely shines through as strong as any of your other sets here. The aforementioned ftilt, little touches like on the uthrow where she dusts herself off, and just the general way she utilises all of her set up has an air of both grace and endearing lack of confidence. It doesn't go too far either in making her seem incompetent or have just spammed flair on many moves, having the subtlety to push these ideas in the right places where it's necessary. This is on top of your usual strong suit of great, creative smashes. It's one of the most likable OCs in recent history I will say too, which is nice. It's not just the character but the set itself does a great job of outlining a character that is creative but not tripping over themselves with obvious flashy concepts that lend themselves to characterisation. She is flashy mind you, but the restraint goes a long way in outlining her as vastly different to any other puppeteer or grass magician and defining her playstyle to the nth degree.

The playstyle of the set equally deserves as much praise as the overall design and characterisation. While I compared her to Zelda earlier, it's really a whole lot more complex than that. The puppeteer playstyle flows strongly into the planter and seeds/blooms, the huge hitboxes remind me a little of sets like Byleth and more tricky characters like Simon. The overarching playstyle is one of a tricky and unique character who can lean on her summoned scarecrows and the various ways to play with frame trap or outright traps created by the planter/bloom combinations. It's cool how all of these built in weaknesses are both a balancing act to keep the set up in play, but also then conversely double up as a way to strengthen her set up too when she gets into advantage. It's nothing mindblowing and yet it just works super well. It's all incredibly visceral and satisfying to envision combining the melee of more intricate existing characters in Smash with the simple creative options in her specials. It comes together wonderfully.

This set is not only your best but would make a worthy MYM winner and we all know you’ve deserved to win for a long time. I think this will end up as one of my top votes even if not getting the SV+, I think it will be in the running for that prize. The quality of the set is simply that good and I can only applaud the care and love that went into the set. The high standards and excellence is an expected thing in your sets now, only shining the brightest in Hina.


Gnasty Gnorc
Thank you for releasing me! I imagine Gnorc would say. I am very pleased after reading Gnasty Gnorc as it was the exact set I needed to read at the moment I think. It's not perfect by any means but it nails what it had to in being an extremely amusing Gnorc set and competent super heavyweight who carves out his own little niche in the genre.

First of all I want to point out how fun this set is to read and the simplicity is a nice diversion from the complex sets we can get in Make Your Move, for better or worse. There's absolutely a place for sets like this but it's not just "long set bad," the writing here is truly well done. Not a single mistake I can really find and always so funny as well because of the funny character being milked for all he's worth. Without spoiling them the jokes in dsmash, the final smash and the excellent use of visual imagery through such as the "ice hockey" up special, golf, swinging the scepter, everything was well thought out. It's important because the set when so simple needs to be able to fall back on strong writing, and it definitely does its job. The use of GIFs and images also helps a lot, though it didn't require quite the talent of the writing, which reminded me a good bit of Kupa at his best.

The set pretty much speaks for itself and while it is definitely far simpler than it could be, it makes sense on several levels for Gnorc to not be a more complicated minions or magic-based character. First of all, he is pretty dumb. That's a very shallow part of it all though. Gnorc is infamously a subversion (not sure if it was intentional) with his fight where he runs away the entire time like a coward, takes extreme offence to the dragons insulting him on television and the contrast of this to his impressive build/magic. He reeks of insecurity. So in the set while he can do impressive feats such as turning the foe into a statue, has minions, the gems, it all amounts to little in the face of just battering the foe over the head. It does work though, mostly because of the Egg Thief, which was a very fun concept to make a central one here. It means Gnorc can sneakily nip away at the foe's stage control using his set up, even if he gets out gems or chests mindlessly, as well as get a truly gnasty combo out of his foes being turned to crystal. All devilish and deliciously true to the character.

One nitpick I have for the dsmash is something I've said for a long time, summoning things from the blast zone is not a good idea. On stages like New Pork City for example, you get the idea. It should be a set height above Gnorc which would be from the blast zones on most normal stages. Minor nitpick, but nonetheless, one of my bigger pet peeves.

As far as balance the set is if anything erring on the underpowered side considering Gnorc is very slow, super heavy and doesn't have the best recovery of all time. I might buff his up special to at least match his dash speed for off stage recovery so he can at least resemble Incineroar or Ganondorf more, while not as bad as those right now the negative of being so slow hurts him a little bit. He does have some fast options but his coverage is not the best, even his GNair for example hitting in one direction, and has a surprising lack of armour. It's not like he's criminally UP though, just get the feeling he'd end up more of a situational pick if he was ever in a competitive setting (which is also at least true to the character). Some general buffs would do him some good though again it's not a huge problem.

The final smash and extras were also amazing for what it's worth. This set reminded me his theme in Spyro 1 exists and gave me a ton of nostalgia even as not the biggest Spyro fan by a fair bit. Funnily enough besides all the more obvious memes seeing the Spyro 1 bosses in the final smash was really a highlight. The set was just a joy from start to finish. For my own personal enjoyment it may even go above Mami for me, even if Mami's the better set and it's hard to argue this isn't objectively your best MYM! Great work Slavic. I cannot wait to see what you have in store next MYM.


skekMal
skekMal is a worthy successor to skekSil and from the character alone, I could tell you were going in an interesting direction for the franchise. Whereas skekSil and skekUng are about what you'd expect for a skeksis, skekMal is one-of-a-kind, besides maybe skekTek, as the rest all have somewhat similar power sets. skekMal as is displayed in the set is the most direct fighter of the entire group.

The way you went about this is very fun to say the least. I love the use of the wall cling and Ridley's SPR-style grab on the up special, and the use of weapons is quite a treat. It's a fun balancing mechanism to nerf his moveset while he doesn't have a sword or dagger to punish him for being too hasty in his approach. The Rage mechanic is also very well done and emphasizes further the focus on his melee game. The set's balance is one of its greater assets considering how weighed down he is by his great size and considerable weight, the set correctly adjusts to this by giving him a few big comeback or set up-lite mechanics. It works for balance, but also for characterisation as it always feels like he can win despite being down and out, which is a big part of his character in the series. It has a similar feel to Ridley in that way.

Characterisation is another strong suit of the set. He always feels suitably intimidating and scary for foes. Be it in his crippling grab game (sometimes literally) or his ability to mount an unbreakable offence of weapons/attacks. To this end the interesting combination of melee and throwing items was a great idea. I'd be remiss to not mention the Gobbles as executed in the set, constitutes a significant part of his playstyle and pressure game.

The set's melee is naturally the main course. It was largely a success, with great moves like jab, ftilt, utilt and all his smashes playing well into his weapons or lack thereof. The aerials and throws I was less sold on, but still had some strong moves like nair, fair, fthrow and bthrow. I was not that big of a fan of the mechanics used in the throws compared to the rest of the set and the pummel felt a little pointless to me after it was apparently nerfed. It may have been better simply combined into the dthrow or another throw as more of a direct gimmick. I felt a little conflicted by some of the simpler moves like uair/dair compared to the rest as they were still very fun, but I'm not sure what exactly to think of them. They certainly felt like good moves for the input.

The set conjured memories of Shadow Teddie, a very old set now that reflected projectiles that fell in a lobbing arc, due to the way the Gobbles work. The set reminds me of many things, perhaps too many honestly, which is why the set is not necessarily a top tier set. It's a bit unfocused and draws inspiration from so many different characters, so feels a little bit bloated. If it just focused on say, Incineroar and Ridley type stuff, it would probably be better. It does really get across how much of a versatile hunter he is at least. It's nonetheless a very good set. Side note that the extras were as always a joy especially for this character. Always can rely on you for some unexpected extra fun Kupa, thank you for helping to make Dark Crystal into a franchise. Now for more sets in the series, mmmmmMMMMMmmmmm!


Broly
Broly was good fun much in the way I expected, while of course a very simple set. The set manages to deliver on the super heavy style I wanted out of the set with its big hits, ranging from powerful kicks to devastating punches. It's all satisfying to envision and absolutely fitting to Broly. Where the set got off track if anything is where it tried for some more unorthodox moves like dair and dash attacks being a projectile. If anything those inputs are some of the best for high impact, satisfying attacks, so rung a bit empty, despite being fine moves for what they are.

The set is pretty well balanced for the most part as a typical heavy without much in the way of gimmicks. His projectiles are what set him apart the most. The one move I felt was OP was the down special. This seems to basically be like Flame Breath, one thing Flame Breath does have is very bad end lag to stop easy gimps off stage when the user can then casually recover (pretty much guaranteed death for Zard or Bowser) so this move can't really be a "low end lag" kind of a move. Besides that I can't really fault the balance much.

The set could've done some more with the basic concepts in the specials like following up after the projectile or focus on his tech chases with side B. The set's kind of just a big guy hitting people, but it makes sense and I do like it even if it is very simple. Nice work Rychu, definitely an improvement over Phoenix and a shrewd choice of character too, HMAs seem to suit you well.


Daisy
Daisy, I think we may have gotten a few sets for her before? Beyond that deja vu, this set is quite good, though it is nothing too extraordinary. I like the use of the gardens and the "tricks" with the Superball is an interesting approach to the character. She's quite an acrobatic princess turning all sorts of gymnastic moves into attacks, sometimes a bit too much like using a handstand or all sorts of vaults. It's still nonetheless a refreshing take on the character. The garden presents most of the fun stuff in the set and gives some fun variety to moves where they might be a bit stale otherwise. The smashes in particular were great fun, particularly the fsmash and usmash. I wouldn't have expected Daisy to have some surprisingly creative props and constructs that set her apart from Peach in a big way.

Beyond that, the set could obviously be a good bit better in some sections, namely the aerials and especially the grab game. I think this sort of speaks for itself when compared to your other set, Cuttlefish, that has much stronger later sections. Daisy's just feel a bit forced. For one thing the uthrow/dthrow are pretty simplistic to round off the set, and the bthrow I am not sure I like at all with how dumb it makes the opponent look, for not really a necessary reason. The aerials mostly work but they aren't terribly much to write home about besides maybe neutral aerial. All in all, I like the set but it's not a strong like. Still this and Cuttlefish is definitely a very nice contest WCF, hope you continue to make sets long into the future!


Polterkitty
Polterkitty is a fascinating character pick and set from you, Bubby, and I'd say is easily my favourite set from you. I don't know if this is a widely held opinion, but I felt like the playstyle section really explained for me why this is the case. The set has a very good understanding of Smash and its mechanics that after reading some sets that don't, was a welcome, interesting change of pace. The set is shockingly technical, and to think when you first joined here your sets were so simple! I never would imagine you discussing the intricate and delicate combos Polterkitty can perform. It truly makes me proud that you've managed to establish your own distinct style. I feel like this is your first set I've really been able to enjoy it too, as previously there's tended to be a mechanic I wasn't a big fan of or something else obscuring the progress you've clearly made.

The set is unique in MYM as a rushdown quadruped and it plays with similar concepts throughout the set. If there is any "gimmick" (which there isn't) for the entire set it's a simple mindgame of similar looking moves like the neutral special and dash attack or the way side special and down special can be used as a mix up, among several others. The set is quite clever in how it tries to slip up foes in small ways and overwhelm them. I really enjoyed the way the up special's strongest hit and moves like up smash utilise on paper broken damage/knockback and their balance around that. They are very carefully balanced to be just about usable but punishable if you see them coming. It's a cool playstyle to keep a foe on their toes and as I already said I had to read the playstyle for this one as it re-affirmed all the positives I'm saying right now.

So the set has characterisation, balance and presentation down (I enjoyed the writing on this set). The one area it was a little lacking was the concepts. It's quite a simple character and ability set for this cat, so I can't blame you with stretching stuff from Polterpup or what have you. I'm not sure what else you could do, but if I was to hone in, the up smash is excellent, but the fsmash, dsmash and the general grab game leave the most room for improvement I feel. In any case, I like this set far more than I expected. Polterkitty and Wolfgeist are two tremendous sets representing LM3 and it's hard to imagine a much better duo of sets for the game. Thanks Bubby and I hope to read more sets from you in the future! I will be getting to Robobot soon so it won't be long, hope to see you next MYM too.


"Lucky" Louise
After I'd read Hina I didn't expect "Lucky" Louise could top her in quality, well, I was clearly wrong. This set is just amazing. There's just so much to praise here from top to bottom, without much negative to go over at all. First of all, I just really love the character and Fortune's Favor! background for the character. It's a fascinating universe and one that's milked for all it's worth in the set, both the characterisation and concepts. The set does a better job of any OC I can think of in grounding the character in her universe and using the set as a way to tell the reader a story about her origins.

The meta aspects of the set, like the jokes about Fire Emblem and Andy being in were one thing and very funny, but I love how the set goes about placing Louise as a character within Smash Bros. She's treated as a representative for her game borrowing many aspects from other characters and the fantasy game itself but also is a tremendously strong character in her own right. You can feel the personality of the character oozing out of every move in the set. I remember praising Aurelia's quirks back in MYM21 on a few select moves but here it seems as if practically every move has a fun animation, reference to the FF! game or does a huge bit of heavy lifting in putting forward the character. It's nothing short of astounding how much character you managed to pack into the set on every level.

That's all without getting to you know, the actual moveset, which is itself a wonder. Really dig the Rigged Dice mechanic and how it gives a fun sliding scale of upgrades to every move, on some moves it's also fun how you'd want to have a number other than just 6. Moves like dsmash that have mini gimmicks like the Hot Potato mechanic of ticking down the bomb and all those 50/50s also feel in-character for Louise in an intriguing way. The set's probably the best "luck-based" character I've ever seen. It's also not easy to make a luck based mechanic work like this and obviously Louise does rig the game in her favour so it's not quite luck, but that in of itself was something of a master stroke in design to make it workable. I also have to give a mention to the great writing in this set managing to get across some pretty abstract ideas smoothly with the Rigged Dice, the cartoony animations and very meta ideas. I know it's easy to do wacky characters usually but this could've gone so badly if not given such an impressive amount of care and attention.

It was shocking to me just how creative this set got and how sandbox-y it felt in a good way. There's so many fun props and projectiles she creates in the set it's easy to lose track, but the set never loses track of its playstyle goals. What surprised me at first too is how the fundamental side special is just a mad dash that you can cancel into other moves and rig into a longer dash as a mix up. The basic move allows for these more creative moves later to work much better, but hoo boy does the set go wonderfully creative once it gets the chance. Every input section feels almost themed; the specials are your fundamentals creating your major set up, smashes are your flashiest pay off and set up all in one, the throws are entirely pay off, standards focusing on the melee game and functionality then the aerials round off with a more melee, rushdown focus! It's a smart approach and works wonders for being intuitive too for new players just messing around as it seems like she'd be pretty easy to get the hang of, even if there is a ton of depth to how she plays under the hood.

The depth of the Rigged Die is where a lot of the crazier stuff in the set comes into play. This ranges from simply turning the spike dair into a stall and fall to using a magnet fishing rod to literally fish your set up on the up tilt! Crazy creative stuff, but pretty appropriate and all so fun as well. It's easy to forget her fun projectile mechanic of ricocheting her projectiles automatically off of constructs and in the context of her ping pong side special. I'm glad you changed the ftilt as it was one of the few things I could really point out wrong. One thing I think could also be changed in that regard is the uair pepper being so small, at a Pokéball size, I'm not sure this would be particularly viable. I'd just buff the size of the pepper (it can afford to be a bit comically large for a pepper) and/or add a hitbox to Louise's arm when she throws up the pepper so she at least has a defensive hitbox on the move. I will say that the fact there's only a couple of things like this to point out in the entire set really talks to the set's high standards.

Another thing I really liked in the set was the chips from the up special. All the ways you can ride around the chips using dtilt or just bashing it around, was even more fun than the ridable safe! And the safe was plenty of fun, don't you worry. I think the safe is the best use of cartoon logic I've seen in a long time. Even the simpler fsmash of the three smashes had a great space taken up in the playstyle as a pay off or punish tool for the rest of her kit, despite being a more cartoony boxing punch in a sense it still felt super creative/fun. The way ftilt worked with momentum from side special was a similar deal, where Louise runs up and bunches up her shots all together just is fun in practice to imagine.

The grab game was pretty fun too for what it's worth, sort of a pseudo special and that makes sense considering her neutral special is largely sacrificed (smartly) for the mechanic. The grab was pretty fun! I liked the way it let you absorb and throw out projectiles, and set up the foe. It was not quite hitting the lofty heights of the smashes, specials and standards, but definitely one of your best grab games. The aerials were the most functionality and melee-focused and like grab game being your best grab the aerials felt like some of your best melee. This was the set landing a bit after the earlier flashy, creative sections for something a bit more grounded... besides the up aerial, but even with my qualms about that move, I still enjoy the set going out on such a wacky note.

All of that said, you can probably see I was happy about this set. It's your best (something I say about your sets quite a bit, but this is definitely the best one and a landmark set just in general) and I'll be even more mindblown if a set outdoes it this MYM. I do have some great frontrunners left to read though so it is possible. It's also the best OC set period (!!!) in my opinion and best realisation of an OC universe I've seen in MYM, which in of itself is an achievement. The set is definitely a long one, but it almost all feels justified when it's so fun and creative. Naturally I'd love to see more of FF!, probably the Mr. Badd style chairman of the game, or anyone really. Even if not this set will be one I think that'll go down as a big moment in MYM for everyone who read it and a set that should make you feel immense pride. Great set and MYM, US, I'm extremely curious where your sets go from here on out.


Kiyohime
Kiyohime was fun, I enjoyed the yandere playstyle based around tethers and the rageful stalking personality. It came through for all of the set and had some creative takes on moves I wouldn't have expected, taking much inspiration from characters like Corrin for the kickback and then interestingly characters like Samus with Charge Shot/her forward aerial. When you consider that Samus' core move in the metagame is those two moves (more or less) that's no small thing. This combo works surprisingly well for a character who is somewhat anti but vulnerable to keepaway at the same time, giving her own keepaway but focusing on punishing it too. It was pretty unique with all of these focuses. The use of tethers especially on the side special was both fun for the character but also the playstyle and when it came up later like in the grab game again, this was a treat. The best way the tether was utilised however was definitely moves like up smash where he strangles a foe that's pushed to the end of the tether, though I enjoyed pretty much all times it came up in melee moves to extend combos or pull Kiyohime along in some way.

The set did have a few issues, foremost the grab game and the dragon throws. This is cool and I enjoyed it but ultimately these dragons throws are pretty simple and just sort of exist to be powerful extravagant attacks. Nothing wrong with that, but it comes off a little weird having this tucked away as an alternative pivot grab-exclusive mechanic. The fthrow is also really simple though I honestly kind of appreciate that. The set has a lot of moves where Kiyohime is just being blown around by magic or throwing out disjointed magic hitboxes in general. I felt like this could maybe have a bit more logic to it than it did structurally, as it seemed like so many aerials did it and while it was fun on fair, it felt a bit redundant creatively reused on uair and dair both. Not a big deal though, just something I noticed that may seem a little odd in practice. All in all I enjoyed this set a good bit and it was a nice shorter set to read amidst a lot of longer ones, so thanks Kat, and I have several more sets from you to look forward to yet.


Ditto
I came into Ditto knowing it had a reputation for being a weird set and it did not disappoint! This is about the zaniest approach I could ever imagine for Ditto and yet, it does work. Only because of how much work you put into these "imperfect" moves and the fact you have a practically infinite base of inspiration to draw from. There's something incredibly fun about how you can turn into a Rampardos for a dash attack, Throh and Sawk on the fsmash, a Tangela for the up tilt, and so on it goes.

Every move is its own little adventure in seeing what Pokémon you'll use next and surprisingly, very well balanced too! The balance is probably the most remarkable part of the set because this would be a set I would assume is a total balance disaster. However, you correctly saw that in Smash it's very easy given no real limits on what you could turn into, that you can just balance every move individually ignoring how absurd Ditto's set may look in practice. You cut through the unbelievable amounts of doubt one might have tackling this whole approach and just have a lot of fun with the idea.

Needless to say the characterisation is a ton of fun. Pretty much every failed transformation brings it own level of fun, and the status effects are if nothing else, balanced really well. It adds a very nice usefulness to some of these less than stellar moves to have the effects attached. In every case it feels weirdly correct for such an odd duck as Ditto to give out these statuses, almost like a Missingno set. It reminds me a good bit of characters like Nero Chaos or Twelve from Third Strike, obviously in terms of the main copy mechanic, but that's pretty great. I like those characters a lot and like Ditto too! I will say too, that there's a shocking amount of super heavy/K. Rool influence (alluding to K. Rool's slow but sometimes great or polarising uair and his dsmash, the "Thrawk" fsmash) and an impressive general knowledge of the game. The grab game especially was very interesting in how it mentions the super heavies or grapplers as being strictly a buff to copy while noting less great options to copy like Fox and Yoshi. An intriguing match-up dependent mechanic and clearly a very in character conundrum to consider as a Ditto player.

The set has a lot of great good points, but it does have some less great parts, mostly in the mechanics and presentation. The set is still outright missing some images, and as they are just Pokémon it's not hard, surely, to add them in now. The set is also a bit obnoxious to look at as it's just black gaudy text on a white background. There is an easy way to make the doc be in "dark mode" and give it a little more appealing text that isn't so big at default, though I guess I could've just zoomed out a little. These are minor qualms, but the main problem I have with the set is the sheer amount of HUD additions it makes to not only Ditto himself (which is fine) but inundating the foe with those status effect bubbles. It's intuitive yeah, but really not necessary, for obvious reasons as if every character did this the HUD would become totally incomprehensible. Even for Ditto himself he has basically an excel spreadsheet and input on there, which also feels a little too much. The move alone is all you really need and just a visual indicator in the form of an "aura" around Ditto or the opponent.

The set is also at times very complicated. It's intuitive enough but keeping track of these graphs and status progress, would be forgivable normally, but the fact it's invited by all these HUD elements highlighting them does make it into more of an issue. It's just a bit too much for Smash for me and could be dialed back. I also think that for all the set does great in its imperfect copying, copying the foe and all the surrounds it is really complicated mechanically. I don't know if all these mechanics were really needed at least to this level of mechanical complexity. Nevertheless, it was done well for the approach you decided.

Overall though I do really like this set, it's impressive how you managed to get so much mileage out of a Ditto coming up with all sorts of oddball attacks interpreting a "failed copy" of Pokémon. For a Pokémon who seems almost impossible, you made a pretty outstanding set ignoring the mechanical or presentation side. I'd sure love to play this if it existed. Very nice work Almand, hope you have a great many more plans for the future.
 
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Janx_uwu

Smash Champion
Writing Team
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Faraway Avalon
Doubt it will make much of a difference in the overall contest, but I wanted to at least get one comment out before the end.

Ochako Katapultar Katapultar
So, I loved Ochako! Truth be told it was a difficult set to read. Now it's entirely possible this was just due to it being my first set ever reading, or the fact that I had a lot going on and just couldn't make time for the set. It was confusing to read at first, but after developing some set-reading muscles and visualizing Ochako and how she works in my head, I think I got a good idea of how Ochako would play.
It's hard to note any negatives (the only thing I have to compare it to is my Shadow set-which is painful to look back and read now that I've realized what a quality set looks like).
I think you did a great job with Ochako's stats and overall gimmick of FLOAT. It's a perfect way to demonstrate the character in an environment as chaotic as Smash. I can tell she will be a character that has a moderately high skill floor and an infinitely high skill ceiling (so, needless to say, not my kind of character-I main Bowser in Ult and he's literally made for babies). This is a character where creativity can really shine on a level we've never seen from the current cast of Smash Ultimate characters (haven't played Melee or Brawl competitively so can't speak on either of those games).
Starting off reading, I thought the cracks would be a very niche gimmick that would be difficult to use, but after seeing how she could activate them with FLOAT during certain motions and attacks made me realize how genius it's put together. It's an extremely well balanced gimmick.
My favorite parts of the set were not when you utilized her Quirk or her Gunhead Martial Arts but both in tandem, because they are almost equally important to Ochako as a character. My personal favorite move happened to be not only her grab but it in combination with her forward throw, which scream of personality and character as well as being creative fighting tools.
Overall I really don't have anything negative to say-though that may change over time as I become a more seasoned MYMer and make my first decent set while reading and commenting on many more. Ochako's got my vote.
 

Katapultar

Smash Lord
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Messages
1,251
Location
Australia
Doubt it will make much of a difference in the overall contest, but I wanted to at least get one comment out before the end.

Ochako Katapultar Katapultar
So, I loved Ochako! Truth be told it was a difficult set to read. Now it's entirely possible this was just due to it being my first set ever reading, or the fact that I had a lot going on and just couldn't make time for the set. It was confusing to read at first, but after developing some set-reading muscles and visualizing Ochako and how she works in my head, I think I got a good idea of how Ochako would play.
It's hard to note any negatives (the only thing I have to compare it to is my Shadow set-which is painful to look back and read now that I've realized what a quality set looks like).
I think you did a great job with Ochako's stats and overall gimmick of FLOAT. It's a perfect way to demonstrate the character in an environment as chaotic as Smash. I can tell she will be a character that has a moderately high skill floor and an infinitely high skill ceiling (so, needless to say, not my kind of character-I main Bowser in Ult and he's literally made for babies). This is a character where creativity can really shine on a level we've never seen from the current cast of Smash Ultimate characters (haven't played Melee or Brawl competitively so can't speak on either of those games).
Starting off reading, I thought the cracks would be a very niche gimmick that would be difficult to use, but after seeing how she could activate them with FLOAT during certain motions and attacks made me realize how genius it's put together. It's an extremely well balanced gimmick.
My favorite parts of the set were not when you utilized her Quirk or her Gunhead Martial Arts but both in tandem, because they are almost equally important to Ochako as a character. My personal favorite move happened to be not only her grab but it in combination with her forward throw, which scream of personality and character as well as being creative fighting tools.
Overall I really don't have anything negative to say-though that may change over time as I become a more seasoned MYMer and make my first decent set while reading and commenting on many more. Ochako's got my vote.
Thanks for reading Ochako! You did tell me you like MHA in private, that's a perfectly good incentive to start reading. Did see on your MYM24 previews you want to make a set for Stain, the MHA fans of MYM (myself included) are looking forward to him! Reading is definitely a good way to get a grasp for setmaking, expectations and even set ideas of your own. As far as reading difficulties go, it may be that Ochako's set length was longer than you may be accustomed to, as I don't believe any of the setmakers more used to MYM's average set length had problems reading her. Ochako is far from the best set in this contest, or even the longest for that matter (longer sets tend to be 20k over Ochako's 10k, but Lucky Louise from this contest is over 30k!); it'd be interesting to hear your opinions on other sets, even if it was next contest which is not long off.
 

NeonVoid

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 31, 2019
Messages
212
Okay I have done all that I can using the amazing comments and criticism I have gotten to make my set the best it can be, both in terms of creativity and aesthetically! Additionally I have tidied it up into one nice little Google Doc!

FInalized Cinderace Moveset (FULL PACKAGE)

I know that everyone is still probably busy preparing for the voting period, so I'll also list out all the changes I made, according to the comments I got!

  • Updated the name of my Final Smash! (A Will of Gigantamax Proportions!)
  • The Final Smash also had a couple of minor details changed and more clarification added!
  • Added GIFS to all of my Specials, gimmick and Final Smash, including clips from in-game and the anime, in which Cinderace stars as the second biggest main Pokemon character behind Pikachu!
  • I arranged my categories and they're now in order from top to bottom; Stats, Gimmick, Specials and physical attacks/aerials!
  • Grab Range was also moved to the Grab category itself!
  • I also stylized the Google doc and made colorful headers to each category, including some resizing.
  • Slightly more detailed explanation and purpose to the Cheering Gimmick!
  • Iron Head is now defined as a good combo starter more now.
  • Some moves have been given examples of how other moves can play off of it, such as down throw, forward throw, down tilt, up tilt, Iron Head, dash attacks, combo starters and etc. Since many basic moves and grabs can play off of Specials (besides the Galarian Punt), I want to use examples so people who would read this down the line can be creative with their choice of executing moves! I probably could have done more, but I also read the feedback and didn't want to overdo it 😅 !
One of the more specific ones and bigger examples is using something like a down or forward throw, and the opponent can misstep and DI away from you after the throw, and then you can punish that behaviour with a small Pyro Ball, If Cheering was active on Pyro Ball, this could work as an amazing combo starter!

  • In one big attempt to give life to the grabs and throws, at least the more important ones, I have also listed some combo starters you can use, and some kill confirms with down throw, Forward throw and down tilt!
  • Additionally, grabs have WAY more detail now!
  • As recommended by some of the amazing comments I got, I also made it to where Down Tilt and Forward Tilt are really good shield-poking options.
  • I added in how long the command grab part of Galarian Punt will last, as well as what I have based if off of. Since Galarian Punt in its entirety is a long description, here is the main part I added.
"This grab, like Lucario’s Force Palm and Incineroar’s Alolan Whip, won’t last any longer than two seconds, in fact it is around exactly two seconds. Since Cinderace has had a lot of heavy promotion alongside Lucario, I really wanted to make it similar to Lucario’s concept, but also make it better and fun to use!"
 

FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
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Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
So, first off, good personal news: My Shou Toramaru set has been finished, if you've read all your sets make sur you also check it out since it'd been "Dodongo'd".

Secondly, that Dodongo editing period is over, although edits are still allowed until the last day of voting. Perhaps we will see the return of a certain horse riding man next contest, as he was just out of time this one?

Thirdly, Voting Period has begun, and voting period will end on the 25th.

Given some people's RL situation was hectic the last week or so, everything was kinda hectic really, alongsinde Smashboards being down a chunk of yesterday and voting period traditionally being two weeks, we decided to extend it to the 25th. Everything about editing etc UserShadow said before still applies.

Remember that you must have at least 10 comments to vote, and that I offer reading lists to anyone who wants them for an idea of a "minimum" amount to read before voting.

Your vote gurus are FrozenRoy and BKupa666. Please send your votelists to both users via Smashboards when you are ready, and make the Top 50 a great one!
 

Katapultar

Smash Lord
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Nov 24, 2008
Messages
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Australia
Ganon Chase Chase ]

Massive apologies for getting to this set late, but finally got around to Ganon and was wondering if you were still interested in the set/MYM. Ganon is a very good first set, showing an awareness of playstyle that's in-character (props to making him play similarly to his boss fights!), attacks that reference his boss fights and some intriguing Specials. In fact, Ganon is interesting enough that I would almost vote for him if you were interested, but there are some missing details that prevent readers from getting the full picture of how his Specials work and their full usage. For example:

Neutral Special
  • How long do the fireballs spin above Ganon's head?
  • How big are the fireballs, roughly? (Pokeball-sized, Mario's Fireball for example) Depending on their size, I would probably make it so opponents can plough through the fireballs with attacks so they can reach Ganon from above.
  • How much knockback, and roughly which direction does a passive fireball launch? You don't have to list these details in every move, just seems like an important detail for this move - I could see Ganon using the fireball to trap foes into one of his powerful hits. The fireball could deal light horizontal knockback, for instance, which could potentially lead into his deadly F-Smash if foes don't DI.
  • How long does it take Ganon to set up the fireballs? Given they (presumably) stay around as active hitboxes, I assume you'd need a good second or so to set them up. I would probably make it so all the fireballs get used up in one hit, or you have to charge for a good while to get all 5 (like, 3 seconds?)
  • How far does a Blazing Bat travel?
  • How long does the fire pillar trap for? Does it end with knockback like Robin's Arcfire? I could see this being a trapping tool of high effectiveness if you landed it up-close, or at least giving Ganon time to approach or set up for his Up or Down Special from a distance.
Side Special
  • Turning your opponent's projectile into a different kind of projectile is a neat concept!
  • It would be cool if Ganon could produce his own projectile - maybe you hold B? - so he's not dependent on enemy projectiles to get this part of his game. I would probably make it a basic projectile, maybe one with light zoning/knockback that's a bit more spammable than his NSpec and DSpec to go along with his keep-away game.
Up Special
  • (going to Format > Clear Format would remove the highlighted write-up if you wanted to, I believe. Had that problem before)
  • Roughly how big is the blast around Ganon on re-appearing, and what kind of knockback does it deal?
  • It seems like the Trident's hitbox would knock foes out of Ganon's teleport hitbox, needing a hard read to land his own hitbox. Maybe the trident doesn't have a passive hitbox, but you can press A while controlling it to make it spin faster and become a hitbox? At the cost of the trident not moving at the time, perhaps, and being punishable if foes bait it out as they can just hit the trident.
Down Special
  • Elaborating on this move's knockback and launch angle would really help, to make this move interesting and give it more of a clear place in Ganon's moveset. For instance, it could deal high base knockback and be a strong ranged KO option.
  • To further make the move interesting, you could take advantage of the fact that it's a lightning bolt to give it a good deal of vertical range ala Pikachu's Thunder, letting Ganon hit opponents above him.
  • You could even make the bolt hit below him if he's airborne - this could help with his disadvantage state if he was high enough above his opponent, very well-deserved given he's easy to combo.
  • If you made the bolt deal upwards knockback, you could hit the foe with more and more bolts.
  • Maybe the bolt has an extra powerful explosive hitbox if it hits the ground?
  • Electric attacks in Smash have their hitstun multiplied by 1.5x. What if the bolt dealt huge hitstun if it hit a grounded opponent, enough that you could combo into a quick attack before they're launched if they were close enough to you? This is similar to Sephiroth's Gigaflare letting him hit with a F-Smash before the foe is launched, but it obviously wouldn't be THAT potent here.
U-tilt
  • The magic sphere being a deadly hitbox is a fun nod to Ganondorf's U-tilt in Smash, while still making the move viable to use. I want to know more about how this works!
  • It seems the magic sphere appears behind Ganon - that would make it an amazing tool for punishing rolls, akin to a D-Smash. Ganon's U-tilt would have to be relatively slow to justify having such a powerful hitbox like this on it.
  • How would you combo into the magic sphere? I don't really see how the spear hit would help.

The rest of Ganon's moveset emphasize keep-away when playstyle is involved; not the most intriguing, as things like combos aren't listed (D-tilt mentions being able to follow up with attacks; could go into F-air for instance?). For moves that do keep-away, you could make a point on what attacks can lead into what ranged options - F-tilt to set up into NSpec or DSpec, any Special really for instance?
 
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FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
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Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
Shou Toramaru Edit/Patch Notes:

- Clarified Shou's Up Special pagoda super armor scales with the 1v1 damage bonus.

- Shou no longer enters helpless when hitting a foe with Up Special (but it doesn't refresh the attack), allowing Shou to use this attack as a combo starter or extender.

- Shou's Up Special still deals light knockback, but now is in the direction that Shou flies: This allows Shou more combo opportunities.

- Landing lag has been reduced on Shou's Up Special, allowing it to act as more of a combo starter in grounded situations as well (tldr given the Up Special didn't have combo potential before, it's now a combo move).

- Shou's Up Special no longer gets stronger knockback at higher levels of pagoda charge, instead the damage increases with the knockback compensated to remain the same, essentially just making it a higher damage dealing combo move.

- At 50% pagoda charge, an explosion of light as a sweetspot at the end of the Up Special's movement has been added that deals 19% damage and kills at 100% damage, a difficult yet rewarding option!

- At 100% pagoda charge, Shou gains a light ring when the attack is initiated that deals 8% damage and briefly stuns the foe, true comboing into the normal rush. This is repeated the first time Shou bounces off of a Tiger Claw, but no subsequent times.

- The early hit instead causes the entire gem pile Shou is on to have the hitbox applied to it when exiting a gem pile, perfect for striking foes trying to keep you from it. Late hit sweetspot only occurs if you do not enter a gempile, but will still work just fine if you fly out of a gem pile and then don't go into another.

- Mentions of new Up Special uses added to the set on moves including: Forward Smash (mixup options in neutral, also expanded on Forward Smash in neutral), Down Smash (true combos out of Up Special rush), Up Tilt (combos out of drag down Up Special), Down Aerial (momentum to cover the stage more), Forward Aerial (combos out of Up Special at specific percents)

- In addition to Dash Attack's pole vault by hitting A, Dash Attack has a secondary follow-up attack by hitting B that allows Shou to do an Up Special-esque rush in any direction while retaining the momentum she had in the original pole vault direction.

- Neutral Aerial now allows you to use Up Special out of it's Sephiroth FAir impale, with a variety of uses laid out within the move itself.
 

FrozenRoy

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Ate Lier (Ayesha Altugle Katapultar Katapultar )

Of all the sets I've read and ranked this contest, I think Ayesha's the one I'm least confident in where I ranked it, I can see arguments for both putting it higher and lower. The biggest plusses to this set are obviously the items, which juggle a lot of damn cool concepts like the stall than fall as a z-drop replacement, the Supernova-esque eclipse explosion and manipulating them via the cauldron, along with an exciting take on Steve's mining mechanic that feels positively ripe for expansion. Combined with Ayesha's cauldron-duplicate, she has some of the deeper and complex play with just the items that we've seen in a long time, which is very exciting.

I also really love the Smash Attacks, ESPECIALLY Forward Smash which is insanely cool with the way that items can serve as power-up points to the Forward Smash to make one of the most ridiculously powerful attacks we have, but also converting item placement into bullet hell combined with how many of her items works creates super fun possibilities for the creative, Up Smash also felt quite fun with the ways that it interacted with the items, Down Smash was the weakest Smash but still good, I would say Forward Smash especially helped push Ayesha above Amano/Sekuna for now. There's also some pretty cool standards in here like Jab, Forward Tilt, Down Aerial (I like the dichotomy between non-buffed and drugged DAir), stuff ike that. Despite being long and my brain being sludgy for a bit, I thought this set was frequently a very fun read with its vibrant animations and the moves it was offering, it's well worth the large wordcount.

That being said...

This set also felt like it had more notable and sharp flaws than some other sets. Personally, the set comes across as overpowered to me, although I am uncertain how much. Quality Materials don't seem THAT hard to get IMO and Ayesha has some very powerful items options with them, particularly the slag and the eclipse. She also has access to a wide array of extremely useful items, the bombs of which are rather cheap given she gathers materials quick enough, and it means she has a fairly good keepaway game complete with some projectile normals.

While she doesn't have the best combo game and in fact it is below average in various respects, it is still pretty existant when she has so many other powerful options, but on top of that I feel like her Cauldron duplicate abilities would give her stronger combo ability than the set implies, which is good for fun but makes her stronger. The combo throws off cauldron duplicates don't seem THAT hard. She also has multiple movement options with her two Cauldron teleports + Up Special, plenty of kill options not all of which are too hard to land, a Frame 8 NAir reflector against other campers and can heavily buff her movement temporarily. This is probably the main thing making me unsure if I want it in its current spot or 2 spots down (above Bleak below Sekuna).

Aside from that, the set does feel a bit less cohesive in how it plays together than Jalter or Chame IMO, and some of the input placement or effects sometimes a bit odd. I actually really love how Jab works, but I do question if jab is the right fit on it, Up Aerial also felt a bit out of nowhere to me, the effect is neat and I do get the flavor but I dunno I did a bit of a double take.

"For a small headstart, the player can press or hold B during a match’s opening countdown (or the announcer’s “GO!”) to start out with 10 materials or two 2 quality materials, using up your first gathering area and shaving 30 frames off of Ayesha’s set-up time. "

Also, IMO, the fact this implies you don't get to start with any materials without pressing B feels weird to me, especially because I see no reason you wouldn't want to start with one of these rather than a gathering area use. I would just make the 10 materials the default and hold B to exchange it to Quality Materials.

Something I do wanna make clear is the item stuff was cool, I know you said you were uncertain if people were all for it after Shallotte, but personally I would love to see more sets with this kind of thing. There's a lot of room to grow it and Steve's mechanics even give an idea of how it might work, there's a LOT of room for a future set using this kind of stuff to go as well. Maybe a set, for example, that can also use a cauldron to fuse two items together in order to make an item combining their effects?

Personally I would nerf the slag item some and nerf how much power the Eclipse gains from Quality Materials in order to help with her balance.
(IMO it'd be better to do nerfs like that rather than nerf QM gain). Ayesha's a pretty great set either way, I hope to see more Atelier sets, after the other girls got 21st/22nd/23rd that means Ayesha will get 20th or 24th most naturally!

Pokemon: Eldritch Horror Edition (Ditto Almand Almand )

If you want to read the craziest set in the contest, you've found that in Almand's Ditto and I mean that in largely a positive way. This set hits the ground running with an extensive move-copying mechanic that keeps itself grounded yet incredibly open-ended, one of the best ideas I've seen for Ditto, there is a lot of math involved but because the mechanic is rather precise I get it. It reminds me a lot of the famous Iguana/Lizard in how it works. The Specials that back it up also feed into this mechanic, Copy Thief is pretty clever given the TM items work into it so much, Night Slash felt like a surprisingly fun way to take on Zoroark's Pokeball attack (and I liked how attacks changed some if the Pokeball Pokemon was on screen as essentially an easter egg).

After that, the set keeps up pure craziness for the rest of it, helped by essentially turning Ditto into an eldritch horror monster. This is a set that turns into a DNA strand for a twirling down aerial and has a Forward Smash where what half and half abomination you turn into based on angling, the last hit of Up Air is horrifying in a glorious way. There's a lot that are less that and more very funny too, this set takes full advantage of Ditto being forgetful and its copying abilities. The attacks for the most part are bizarre yet fun, I do feel it somewhat fell off from the hot start but that was merely from "great" to "good". The input section that feels somewhat weak design-wise is the grab game, which is basically just there for mechanic boosting.

Aside from the grab game, the way the set is crazy also makes it feel more uneven, I would say a lot of the sets I enjoy more than it feel more "organic" while Ditto feels rather "artificial" in how it gets the most out of its potential. I'm not sure about Down Tilt randomly having an un-shieldable wind gust, for example. The UI elements here also feel overwhelming, with three on screen all the time along with item UI which feels perhaps a bit ridiculous. I don't think you could read the UI on the TM in the heat of battle given the size. The UI issues aren't as big for me as I bet they are for other people, but it is still notable.

Ditto nicely uses a Himiko-esque approach to melee of leaving gaps in the base set for the more copying attacks to fulfill, but to use Himiko as an example I felt that set was much more interesting to play outside of the copying while Ditto is more crazy creativity. Ditto does have a lot of stun but it is extremely balanced with lots of edge cases looked at, so IMO it is fine. As mentioned, I thought the grab game was kinda eh. I did really like the Final Smash, however.

All things considered Ditto has a pretty good chance at hitting RV for me and was a blast to actually read, so great work Almand, I'll be reading Ty/Cooking Mama soon and hotly anticipate any MYM24 offerings you'll have!

Movie Exclusive skekSil (skekUng, the Garthim Master Smady Smady )

skekUng by Smady is an, mmmmm, exquisite set that starts off with in my opinion a very strong core, this being the Crystal Eye, the epitomous Garthim and his stone pillar. The Garthim and stone pillar of the two felt like big highlights to me, I appreciated the expansion of the pillar as more of a king of the hill trap that plays around with background-object ideas, any Ganondorf player knows the thrill of extending a Forward Smash hitbox on something to obliterate a foe and skekUng with his own Forward Smash has that down pat. The Garthim themselves are fun minions in their simplicity, being more like a combination Space Pirate Rush + on-demand bomb with a hurtbox than a traditional minion, or perhaps more aptly like a Zelda Down Special you can explode which IMO seems cool.

The way the Crystal Eye works is unique and I like the effects on the set, although to a degree I wish the idea it was "analyzing" the foe was a bit more into some attacks, maybe something like more of a counter rather than just super armor on one of them, or for an idea IDK if it'd be too out there making it so some option's armor or other Eye options are more effective against foe's staled moves or recently used moves due to them knowledge of them being in the crystal, or something like that. This is ultimately minor since I do enjoy what is there, but it was something I kinda thought during the set, Neutral Aerial actually felt like one of the most fitting moves in this respects.

Before going on more I'd like to say this set has some pretty damn good characterization. I like that this isn't just a minion abuse set but one played largely seriously, which really ups the vileness and emperor pomp that skekUng oozes all over, in addition to things like the disgusting way the Forward Tilt infects his Garthim and the arrogant way that he carries himself in many moves. The references to other skekSis, especially skekSil, was also fun continuity best exemplified in the Final Smash. It's all very fun. Oh, also, speaking of the Eye options: The way it works with the Garthim was also a great flavor use of the Eye.

Speaking of fun, the Smashes are good! Forward Smash is a Ganondorf DORIYAH with pizzazz on top, I like that rather than just super armor there's an element of surprise here on the Crystal version as it works well into stuff like his Garthim's range or explosions, and Up Smash shows how you can take a very basic move (Roy Up Smash) and weave it deftly into a playstyle although of course skekUng here adds more, Down Smash is primarily here with the dead insect guts slip 'n' slide but is a good attack on its own although IMO it is the weakest of the smashes.

MO, the weakest part of the set is the last two sections, which are good but did not excite me as much as earlier. While skekUng is great at bullying enemies off stage I do not know that he needed two spikes + a semi-spike to go full Donkey Kong when he also has the pillar, the Garthim for ledge trapping, a killer 2-frame Forward Tilt and so on. I think one of the aerials instead working better into the rest of his game would have been a better choice, such as being a shorthop stuffing or full hop stuffing move for foes jumping over his Garthim and/or a launcher into the air to give higher advantae to skekUng's noted and great anti-air options. The grab game was good, I particularly liked Down Throw, Forward Throw/Back Throw are fun, the Eye options here can seem somewhat similar and IMO it is the part of the set that feels most disconnected from the rest of it in terms of playstyle weaving.

For more minor things, animations in this set did sometimes feel a bit odd, primarily Down Smash (where I almost wonder if it'd made more sense if the bugs appeared from the ground but this could be a Dark Crystal reference I don't know about) and Down Tilt (which IMO is the weakest standard gameplay-wise too).

Overall skekUng is a set I feel very positive on, I might move it up more later (I was debating above Hina below Jalter) too. It's got a strong core that it builds upon quite nicely, strong characterization, if anything the only issue it has is that in a set with two 10s and a full 6 nine stars there is a lot of competition and some sets did a bit more for me, but to give you an idea I feel like none of the 9s I have right now are "Low 9s" which makes choosing them very hard!

Futabarama (Hotaru Futaba Katapultar Katapultar )

Onto Hotaru! The T.O.P. mechanic is very fascinating, I think it has a lot of potential, this set doesn't necessarily utilize all of it since it is of course focused on going with the Terry-style two Super moves. That IMO is itself very potentially interesting, although I'm a bit torn on this set's usage of it. The Ground Super Special is really cool, particularly when used in things like BAir, but the aerial Super Special feels like a borderline after thought in the set. It has powerful possibilities, sure, but the set doesn't feel like it is designed with Hotau's invincible diving attack in mind outside of Down Aerial when it could provide a great threat when she approaches aerially.

Something I'll talk about here a bit is also just Terry's own Go sauce. One thing that helps make it fun is that the Super Specials have synergy with each other. ARE YOU OKAY is a really strong horizontal movement attack, but it is super vulnerable to jumps to knock him out of it since it's a psuedo-grab, Power Geyser in turn will absolutely body anyone who takes to the air but is easily shielded or you can wait it out. And since the first one is a psuedo-grab, it gets to be shielded. But an opponent who just stays scared shielding is easy picking for any of Terry's other offense, so they can't just turtle. In short, Terry's Go Mode takes advantage of the natural tension of a meter mechanic / super mode / etc in order to create exciting gameplay in how to deal with this powerful unlocked option.

I bring this up because while this isn't the only way to do a mode, with how Hotaru is constructed I feel she could stand to be scarier. The set feels somewhat overbalanced. 1% healing per second is good, but not only is it capped but Hotaru ALSO takes chip damage on her shield, meaning that even when opponents do not get clean hits on her at minimum they'll be nullifying the healing she is getting in T.O.P. because of it. Two of the moves that take advantage of her powerful Super Specials, DAir and BAir, are my some of my favorite moves in the set but it doesn't feel like she has enough of them, especially since BAir being a BAir on an auto-turn character makes it inherently more niche. The Super Specials also don't have any specific synergy amongst themselves, making them really fun moves but not as well integrated as they could be.

The base of the set aside from that wasn't super impressive to begin with, but was solid. I am a big fan of Forward Smash, but I do wonder if it needed all the little weaknesses at the end, it took me a moment to realize when it was talking about missing "high opponents" it didn't also mean big bodies but that's on me lol, it already has clear counterplay in it's weakness to jump-ins, Up Smash was fun, Down Smash I am a bit torn on as I do kinda like how it works with shields (I did something similar with Shou's Down Tilt) but here it felt a bit UP to me. Jab was probably the highlight of the Standards, which felt good but not great overall, Down Tilt IMO seemed like it is just kind of there.

It's when we get to the Aerials and Grab Game that I think the set picks up. Almost all of the aerials play interestingly into Hotaru's attack, making her feel like a bit of a footdive kind of character with Down Aerial, Back Aerial is really cool with how it interacts with Ground Super Special as a super threatening option and I liked how Up Aerial played with air dodges and Hotaru's playstyle. Only Forward Aerial and Neutral Aerial felt weaker, NAir I think is good, but I do wonder if FAir could play a bit better, right now it kinda feels lik a worse NAir with a cancel. I also think that the standards or smashes could set this up better, despite all the diving attacks she doesn't have a lot to really set it up into that kind of aggression, even something like a Smash or Tilt safe on shield that 50/50s into an unsafe or safe dive option on shield that opponents need to look out for.

Grab Game is fun. Up Throw felt like it could do more IMO, in particular I think it'd be fine if it allowed some combos, but others like using the KoF invisible walls or the ledge-spacing Down Throw for example. They feel like a good example of a highly working grab game without being so strong.

I think the set could have taken advantage of T.O.P. ranges more in the set. For example, giving Hotaru specific combos for damaging or killing that only work at certain percents in T.O.P. range or even only in T.O.P. due to its boosts, which gives foes specific things to worry about for Hotaru depending on her TOP range and let her play somewhat differently with it as well. For example, maybe one of her best early game damage combos is with T.O.P. and a Super Special Move finisher, so she would want to use it more with 0%-50% since that's when you're more likely going to be damaged. But a kill move would likely be more useful later in stocks once you've both traded blows and a Super Special Move kill confirm is only available at 50%-100%, so you lose access to it. This would be a way to add a lot more depth to Hotaru without interactables or whatnot, as I don't think the only way to get more out of it is with adding more crap to it, a purely melee focused set could as well.

In short, Hotaru's actually a rare set where I wish it was "wordier" because I think it had room to get more complex with its ideas and moves.

At the end of the day Hotaru is still pretty good although it is distinctly below Sekuna for me, closer to Bleak. That's still a nice 8 star ranking, and I'd really enjoy seeing more sets with this kind of mechanic along with more KoF/SNK sets, but when it comes to sets like Chame or Jalter I felt they had a lot stronger melee even when not accounting for their mechanics, while Ayesha of course had the wild creativity. Thanks for the set, hopefully I'll clear out more of yours soon!
 
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Smady

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Cyclohm
After finishing Cyclohm it’s clear MYM23 was a big MYM for you Bubby! This set feels like another big step up from you, as it’s such a clearer moveset style than I’ve previously seen from you, though not quite up to the high standard set by Polterkitty. It’s a typical weather user sort of a set without any pretence of it not being one, proudly having an interaction-laden cloud construct he shuffles out onto the stage to use in many moves. It doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to be good though! If anything I enjoyed the supplementary moves adding to the bigger picture as I feel you’ve come a long way in making the meat and potatoes of a set.

The specials set up a fun dichotomy of the weather related set up with the cloud and the status effect while giving a punchy melee game to help Cyclohm along. You can almost feel the oppression of one of those fast paralysis users from the Pokémon games with how Cyclohm loves to effortlessly torment his foes into submission! The smashes in particular such as Dragon Tail and Electric Terrain have a nice chunky hitbox that feels just out of reach for foes to punish, while leaving enough holes in an offence to never truly be evergreen strategies. The set never loses focus of the playstyle and ends up far stronger for it when it builds on this fun and well characterised base.

I think this is most easily seen in the aerials and standards here. While not particularly long or complex moves, they all have a very playstyle focused aim where they exceed well. I can definitely feel the Kirby main coming through a bit on moves like neutral aerial and even down aerial to an extent, the sprinkling of Banjo-inspired moves like forward aerial also make a lot of sense. The use of his body type with the three heads was always a fun part of the melee game wherever it came up and give him a meaty playstyle of these jointed, funky attacks. It’s nothing too complex which is reserved for the heavier interactions present in the cloud. In the future though it’s clear a marriage of these interactions as less disconnected parts of the set and a better grab game is the obvious way to go. The grab game here is not the best and it’s easily the worst section, a shame after a good aerials and standards section. Nonetheless I did enjoy this set and it’s one of your best, good job Bubby! Excited to read Robobot Armour.


Ayesha
It took me some time but I finally finished reading Ayesha. A very long, fun playground set that has all the staples of a Kat set; wacky items and item manipulation galore! Some of my favourites include the bomb, the big bomb, the tree (and “Himmel Schenk in general”) and the black eclipse, though the last one was a mite ridiculous. It’s easy to lose track of the many ways the set can manipulate the items on most moves even up to and including the aerials and moves like down air that if not yielding a direct interaction, directly are boosted. Items if not direct buff at times obviously play to her playstyle and every move is very descriptive about this, though it can be a little specific (down aerial comes to mind).

This is not a normal set and it’s nice if nothing else to get something a little more directly complex in this way. This is probably one of the best ones, it’s helped by the fact that it’s full of references to her series and the gigantic special that starts it off is full of many fun allusions to her franchise and her personality, the previous characters in this genre we are not nearly this involved in terms of references and characterisation. I also will say that your melee game has come a long way since some of that older Atelier stuff, even the ones that were done a couple of MYMs ago. Ayesha has a very clean writing style that makes it easy to understand all of the complex interactions, particularly true in the smashes and aerials where the set’s very clear about its aims. The standards were fun though felt a bit laboured for the animations and in general the set has quite a few attacks that seem a bit counterintuitive and clunky, seemingly for the sake of balance.

The balance of the set seems to rely on the idea that heavy set up will make up for her shortcomings. The set has gimmicks attached to so many moves I couldn’t keep track of them, fun as they were, the focus is so strongly on complimenting her items. I don’t feel it’s needed for me to say that the grab game was compared to everything else very simplistic although in some ways was a bit of a relief and for how long as it was before the throws, I can’t complain that she has a more basic moves in there. Still it stands to reason that obviously it’s the worst section.

Not even touched on half the core mechanics yet. The cauldron/Steve crafting box mechanic, the materials, clone, the alchemy, the difference between quality material and regular material… it’s all extremely dense and for the most part a fun dichotomy. I should say that as I went over earlier the basic mechanics at the start are really good, which was practically a foregone conclusion for all the attention they’re given. The sheer length of the move may not have been wholly necessary as while I do like the bombs, schenk and eclipse (less so that one, seemed a bit extreme if fun) and a few of the other items in smaller ways, they really serve a huge purpose compared to the others. Really the best items are the ones that are most directly used as attacks. The buffing ones and more situational attacks probably aren’t that viable due to the set up needed. In the end you’re just going to want to basically get the early items or build up to much stronger ones. The ones in the middle mostly exist to use as a mix up. I am not sure not sure of the same really acknowledged the items as well as it could have because of the fact there were so many.

Ayesha is one of the best of the style but it could definitely have been a little more ambitious with its balance, while I like the eclipse I feel if anything you could’ve gone much further making her stronger regardless of materials or done something to make her more of an omnipresent threat. It’s still a really good set, but doesn’t feel as ambitious as I may have liked for that reason. Though it’s still good and that’s what really counts! Very good job Kat and I look forward to finishing up your stellar MYM23 contributions.


Cooking Mama
After Ditto, I suppose I should’ve known what I’d be in for with Cooking Mama, it did not disappoint bringing the same style of funny unorthodox ideas. For CM though, it is a lot more of a mixed bag than Ditto who is mechanically complex but also had none of these characterisation issues as it leaned hard into that approach to Ditto and didn’t do anything expressly odd to opponents. CM on the other hand loves to interact with the foe in weird ways and has some other flaws that take the shine off an otherwise fun moveset.

To start with the good, the Bowl mechanic is really fun, cloning the G&W Bucket but instead letting her fill it herself on top of using the foe’s projectiles is really clever. What was particularly clever and kind of genius was the down smash and down special used to chop up her vegetables for her bowl. It’s rare to see a cooking mechanic, even if just preparation in this case, put to such good use. The various ingredients were all very fun whenever they came up as different hitboxes with slight twists on how they are thrown or used in attacks again like down smash, definitely my favourite move in the set there and the hitbox image is perfect.

The bad is a few things, for one the presentation is just as plain and gaudy as in Ditto, the black on white font is not a great look, but a minor issue. I am not a fan of moves like the throws, dash attack and up tilt accidentally attacking the foe. It just looks very tacky in a fighting game, at best I’d like if she just accidentally was more forceful in attacking as in didn’t realise her own strength or is not used to fighting. Her sneezing from her own pepper is about the bar for tolerable accidental attacks. I also found it odd some of the specific effects like the bair having a random lingering status effect from stabbing the foe with a pair of scissors? Doesn’t make much sense when attacks like Marth’s neutral special have no such effect and similarly the up special where the foe “angrily” pulls up Mama or them getting trapped in a scarf like a cartoon character is kind of sad. I can forgive the foe being forced to sneeze from pepper or eating food dropped onto a stage that’s full of trash, but all of these other things come across as unnecessarily tacky and awkward.

On level I do feel the negatives outweigh the positives here, but there is plenty to enjoy and it’s hard to be too offended by the set’s missteps. All I can say that is hard to look past is the grab game is not only barebones but has some of the worst accidental attacks I can remember. The grab itself is also a pretty obtuse and weird animation for a grab that barely makes sense. Sadly that does drag down the set for me a bit, but it was worth a read anyway and I can’t say it wasn’t entertaining to devour. I look forward to finally getting to Ty, good job Almand!


Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is the last of the Almand sets I read and another strong set, for very different reasons than the other two. While I may prefer Ditto overall to Ty, there's some extremely strong parts to this set. First of all, the beginning of the set is extremely strong and both for how it presents Ty as a character as well as the set's mechanics, notably his 'rangs mechanic, is nothing short of fantastic. I love the way you get across Ty's character and feel as if I know the character really well despite never really hearing of him before this moveset. The way the 'rangs work is uniquely complex, as I've come to expect from your up front gimmicks like this, but it's a niché of moveset I've come to enjoy from you. Though MYM sets can be quite gimmicky they don't tend to be so front loaded as your sets are but in your case you then back them up with so much other information that it works very well. This set is the same, having a constant stream of hitbox data, hitbox visualisation, mechanically thick and always strongly connected to the playstyle. It's quite unlike the typical MYM set and yet has the same strengths as any of the veterans at its best.

I will say that surprisingly besides the 'rangs another aspect I quite enjoyed was the Sonic-but-better design at play in the set. The neutral special being like a more fun version of Homing Attack and the bites (I would enjoy there being a cartoon-y chomp sound effect here personally) to bully the foe out of their set up is a fun little gimmick in of itself, though the move greatly expands on Homing Attack. The biting moves where they show up as a finishing hit or for when Ty simply wants to make a bite out of the foe's hopes and dreams, are always a welcome twist on the set's usual goal of 'rangs for all.

The set is a fun diversion from how sets are usually presented in MYM as the visual data you give means you can talk less in the moves proper about the attacks. Your data after every move is again unlike other MYM sets and it works surprisingly well because of the abundance of information you give and how you lay out every individual hit. It certainly works here. One area I feel this set has the drop on both Ditto and Cooking Mama is the characterisation, as it's practically perfect for Ty. He feels like a fitting mascot comparable to Banjo or as said already, a well designed Sonic, with a fitting central focus put on the 'rangs. I will say I kind of forgot his glide exists by the end of the set and had to refresh myself but it's nonetheless not a bad mechanic, just overshadowed by the 'rangs.

One thing that I found fun is how you avoided any redundancy with moves where Ty is simply tossing his rangs around. Notably the 'rang projectile moves of side special (love the reference point of Pac-Man's side special here), ftilt, fair, ftilt and fsmash all did a great job distinguishing their differences as far as throwing the 'rangs. I enjoyed the nair's unique flight path too and the decision to litter the set with moves simply dedicated to throwing around the 'rangs without much fanfare as it was already given all the necessary depth through all the 'rang types and information in the mechanics. There is inevitably some minor redundancy here, mostly as compared to someone like Mega Man the melee potential for Ty to have an up close sweetspot (MM has one on nair but not other pellet moves) means functionally, the moves end up functionally being quite similar. This is however addressed a bit by having the melee 'rang-less versions too.

The set when not focused on the 'rangs ranges from not as strong to iffy, though never to the point it's bad. I'd say this is your most consistent set. The sticking point is definitely the Bunyips not flowing much into his game plan, and may have been better as some kind of wall to embed in for 'rangs or another stage control tool. The other one is the grab game, which is not too bad this time and a massive improvement on Cooking Mama but nonetheless, felt like some missed potential. A character as creative as Ty feels like he's crying out for some fun throws making use of throwing 'rangs in situational ways only possible on throws, think Mewtwo or Fox's projectile throws but with selected 'rangs. This could at least be the case on a couple of the throws and have the others be more traditional playstyle-greasing options. I will also say all the times Ty is just bashing his 'rangs together and his simple melee game at times was a bit underwhelming, but a far cry from bad.

US pointed out to me in private how he enjoyed reading this set in short time despite its length and I had the same experience. It's a smooth and fun read. Once you get all the mechanics out of the way it all gels together in a satisfying way. I'm impressed how entertaining you make the simple concept of boomerangs frankly, as I wouldn't expect to see them made into a deep mechanic in this way before reading this set. This set may not be among my absolute favourites of the MYM but make no mistake, this is a set to be very proud of for how new you are to the community and deserves every bit of praise it receives! I'm so excited to see where you go from here Almand, I think everyone has their eye on your sets going forward.


Dragonmaid Chame
I was curious about Dragonmaid Chame and after reading it I do see why for some it has generated some excitement! This is a fun and simple set that is much unlike other longer sets this MYM because it’s a nice smooth, brushed clean smooth, trip down the memory lane of this “paint the stage” sort of set. The reference point of Steve’s jab was notably clever in my opinion to mindlessly allow Chame to clean across the stage in large swathes at a time. The duality of moves changing whether in cleaned or uncleaned stage was clever – the portal like way that fireballs can transfer over the cleaned ground is cool and there were many fun interactions where Chame’s cleaning affects her set in interesting ways. The set has some fun melee too, such as her quasi-chargeable fthrow that powers down as you SPR across the stage further.

The characterisation’s also top notch, I like the “not knowing your own strength” take here, as you may have read in my Cooking Mama comment I can totally get behind that angle for a fighter who doesn’t want to fight. The set has other “surprises” in there such as the dtilt where the largely unused tail makes a surprising powerful strike. There’s a good deal of fun mix ups because of the cleaned/uncleaned stage making use of the stage’s cleanliness or lack thereof to improve combos. The very first move is a great punish as well for foes no respecting Chame, reminding me a little of Sho Minamoto. Fun to think this set reminds me strongly of Sho… and my ancient Mr. Mime set, the mime that turns the stage monochrome. I enjoyed moves like the bthrow time bomb and the Auron-like usmash, funny how this set reminds me at times of my old terrible sets but doing their concepts well.

Where the set falters a little for me is that it feels simplistic at times. Simple is good and I like that she is a different, it’s been nice reading a few shorter sets, but in Chame’s case a few moves seem to revolve around the stage being clean or not. The most obvious example being the bair simply being stronger, the fsmash is a similar deal of simply being stronger when in a clean area. It also seems a little silly that she has the “hold A to keep doing dash attack” dash attack Junahu hated (not that I do just funny to mention) which makes her go at Sonic’s dash speed, which seems a little excessive. The uair I do like being a short move and all, but I have to say also is quite simplistic. I’m not sure you needed the uthrow when you already had the down special to make the foe create sparkles/clean the stage.

Overall this is a very nice set for a shorter project and another fine addition to the Dragonmaids. I really like the characterisation above all else and the neat concept of clean areas and Chame’s obsessive personality is very well done. It’s been some time since we had a set like this where you fight the foe for stage control as they passively delete aspects of it through their sheer existence and I’m glad it was revived here, showing how fun it is when in a modern set. An impressive MYM already Kat and I still have one more set from you to go!


Sekuna
Sekuna was a fun melee-focused set from you, and it definitely gets off on an interesting foot when it starts with the forward tilt like one of those old Muno sets for Fantasy Strike. In Sekuna’s case it’s a nice way to frame her mechanics heavy playstyle based around various debuffs that is uncharacteristic of your style and it’s always cool to see someone expand out beyond their style in this way. The set a few times even delves a little deeper into some more complex explanations for its exact numbers, though I do wish the fsmash stated the exact shield stun amount though that is a nitpick. Besides that the set is good at saying the exact ways to form combos and not leave it up in the air as weaker sets in the combo genre can tend to do when not at their best.

The set’s structured beyond presentation in an eclectic way when you look at her overall playstyle. She’s not so much a tricky character as a smorgasbord of various characters sort of smushed together, memorably taking the Knee of Justice, ROB’s recovery, Ness’ dtilt, Lucario’s dsmash to name a few of the ones that stood out as interesting additions to the combo pack. The set makes sure that these combos do work, because the amount of powerful debuffs you can apply and their affects on her combos are very fluid. It ends up making for a set that’s got a bit of a crunch to it as far as seeming quite satisfying to play, having so many memorable and proven winner animations in there. It really shows how much you know about Smash now to be able to conjure up the wide range of intriguing attacks and put them together into a melee focused combo character.

As far as negatives I was actually a bit concerned by how much of the HUD she would take up with all of these icons she needs to apply to the foe. I’m not really a fan of adding stuff to the foe’s HUD period. It’s something I commented on in Ditto too, I’d personally prefer just having these hover over the foe or have them take on just physical changes to avoid clutter. The other thing that seemed off to me was that she applies so many of these debuffs later anyway, after making a point to start off with these melee moves ostensibly I thought designed only to apply the move. It does mess with the balance a bit to allow her to apply these debuffs that freely as the set gets pretty crazy when even a couple are applied at once, so I’m not sure this is a good idea, plus those moves suffer for having to revolve around those effects.

Overall quite a good set and another stronger addition to MYM from you FA, I would say this is a good deal better than Mina for me though I’m not sure how I’d place it compared to Kyoko. I think maybe she felt a little better overall but parts of this set are very appealing, so I may not have settled on my favourite yet. Sorry I've not yet read your much bigger but I figured I’d save a couple of the best for last. Seems to have been a very fruitful MYM for you! Hope to see more of your sets next MYM too.


Robobot Armour
Robobot Armour rounds out easily your best MYM Bubby, you've done a great job here. Robobot is the weakest compared to Polterkitty and Cyclohm but nonetheless is a fun simple heavyweight set that certainly entertained me as someone who really enjoys playing as super heavies in Smash. Robobot Armour has a nice combo of super heavy strong moves like his grappler-style throws, moves like fsmash and his impressively powerful standards while having the tech to back it up in his trickier inputs. His fair is some nice glue for the playstyle while his many recovery options complement his strong stage presence so that he's fittingly oppressive.

The set has plenty of interesting ways of further investing into the all-or-nothing attacks like dash attack, the cheesy K. Rool propeller and the tricky Gordo-like electric spheres, Mecha Koopa like Boomstepper and out-of-control saw. Then he has other ways to catch out foes not giving respect like uair, fair and nair. The way the aerials and hover work is very well done and gives him the suitable amount of aerial tools where he can defend himself in the air. It just works together well for the character, simple as it is. It probably isn't a surprise that I'd say the grab game was the worst section but I did appreciate the animations like dthrow and their super heavy/grappler aesthetic. If nothing else the animation and image work was superb, the set was a smooth, great read and hard to critique much beyond what it could have been. I'd like a little more complexity than shown here but it's still a great base that's not really doing anything hugely wrong. Great work this MYM, Bubby!


Primordial Darkness
Primordial Darkness, finally got around to reading this one! Apologies it took this long, but I figured I would really like this one so wanted to save it for late in the game. I was told this character would appeal to my HMA sensibilities and that was certainly true. He reminds me of how in Tekken you had Jinpachi introduced in Tekken 5, an even older more HMA father of the already old HMA Heihachi, in this case you can replace Heihachi with the Smash Ganondorf. Plenty of fun to be had in the characterisation alone for PD, and strangely despite being thin on character the little touches of charm here or there felt surprisingly strong too.

The set gets off on the right foot to say the least with the great neutral special. I like the look of this move too transforming the stage around PD and the effect is really fun, just giving a strong passive defence to PD. Here I think is where the elemental choices are at their best in the set. The different choices, the funnest one to me being the even more defensive ice armour, are all well distinguished, albeit quite simple. Simple isn't bad though, and they all do a good job of carrying through his lumbering super heavy body past the inherent issues in the type of character. It's an unabashed super slow heavyweight as well what with insanely slow attacks on basically all inputs, you can probably count the attacks that take less than 15 frames to come out on one hand, including the grab and I like just how little it pulls its punches with that in a way.

The Miasma was a fun special to round out a strong specials section, I particularly liked the up special "counter" as well, and the projectiles were good though I think really hit their zenith with the dsmash interaction. I was surprised but enjoyed the fact the standards were second, to give more of an immediate insight into how this kind of character even does things like neutral. I think of note here is the K. Rool-inspired, "but better" ftilt, similar to the uair as just "this was already a fun move but in this context, better!"

There's no shortage of armour in the set, even beyond the neutral special. Moves are smart to add on some early armour to most moves to at least be able to trade and the fact the neutral special outright ignores damage it tramples past was a bold move, but I feel a well calculated one. The set really takes all the anti-heavyweight feel of the metagame and pushes it whole hog here with the amount of seemingly extraneous effects, but once you see the meta of Ultimate or play it yourself it's easy to see how it's justified. He does have some projectiles at least so he's not quite as held back as Ganondorf but nonetheless, his dash speed and frame data is so awful, it's hard to criticise balance here. If anything I feel he may be a little undertuned if anything what with his limited ground-to-air game. Stall then falls are not particularly great once understood, on a high level anyway, but I also wasn't sure how bair's ground hitbox would be too relevant unless he's leaning back super hard to land it. If you wanted to improve the balance I'd expand on that and buff his regular dair and perhaps even his charged dair against shields.

Two of the highlights were his fsmash and dsmash, and usmash was good fun too. Creating a massive stage-wide explosion of effects was very cool top of everything else so extreme about the move where you're pushing the envelope harder than practically any smash I've read. For emphasis, the dsmash is fantastic. The fsmash was a fun interpretation of that sort of min (min) maxed range and power versus speed condundrum - scary! I like that punches made a bit of a comeback this MYM for moves like this as they're a fun attack to mess with in all sorts of creative ways. It was neat to see the elements return, but I honestly never felt they were as well executed as they were in the neutral special, though that's obviously a tall order. Fun as it is, seeing them return for two throws felt a tad excessive. I also wasn't the biggest fan of the dthrow effect on throws, not that it's unjustified again if you grab the foe as this character they deserve this, I'd just prefer an effect that encouraged a bit more counter play, as it feels a little bit annoying for foes. The throw animations definitely had a nice crunch to them for animations touching back on the characterisation from earlier.

Overall this set did not disappoint me for what I was told about it being an extreme, fun super heavyweight that had experimental balance. It's very entertaining seeing you play with these super heavy balance ideas in this way and I'd love to see more people challenge themselves with this sort of character. I do feel though there's a few issues keeping it from measuring up to your best like Xehanort however and I'm not sure where exactly I'd place this as far as my favourites, but it's definitely up there pretty high. I'm not sure how much of that is bias from how appealing it is to me specifically, and I kind of wish I could give a more resoundingly positive comment as I do love a lot of what the set aims to do, just not perfectly happy with some of the execution. In any case, you had an awesome contest FA and I hope you manage to get even more motivated for next MYM. If you want to do more sets like this one, I would be ecstatic, but whatever you choose to do from here I feel like you've proven it's something everyone should be excited to read.


Mysterio
Mysterio was another set I'd been saving for the end of my reading more-or-less and seemed like the right one to read next after PD, knocking out two big sets! This one was another big one that did not disappoint me, it was surprising and yet not how you continue your trademark style. It's a distinctively... direct style? The use of poison/super mushrooms is not even a new concept, as I remember it in ancient sets like Jarvis, but it works just as well now. The concepts of the invisibility and a duplicate is not new either, and yet here it's put to such great use with a completely renewed sense of balance. It's funnily enough very similar in concepts to the MYMX Pennywise set and everyone loves it now just as much if not more than they loved old Pennywise back in the day!

It's funny to consider all of that in the concept of Mysterio's character and it was hard to not consider how this character all about tricking his enemies is built on a set full of clever little design tricks. I was impressed just how much creativity you managed to squeeze out of the character. He's not a difficult character to think up moves for but I did not expect the level of creativity on display here. It feels like almost every move has a flashy animation in one way or another, if not outright, then has a mindgame or alternate version attached.

It's another fun callback to the old MYMX Pennywise and that era of duplicate sets to have direct mindgames in some of the moves, particularly concerning the fishbowl/uair and the mix up options. It does work quite well too. I do wonder at what point the set becomes a little too annoying in practice for foes to really want to fight against. In this set's case, I think the balance is what makes it work mostly. He is quite unremarkable as a combo or rushdown character despite all of his flash, unless he gets some specific combos down. I can imagine a mad rush of players figuring out all his exact combos on an imaginary release into Smash, but by design, it's never allowed to get too crazy.

That thought brings me on to discussing the balance of the set. I think it again does work because of the fact he is while fairly heavy (maybe a bit too heavy honestly) he is not a remarkably strong fighter before he gets into advantage, gets off a side special, in combination with down special and naturally his neutral special. These are not instant and you're likely to just be able to get one off at a time, maybe push your advantage from there to slowly get a handle on the match. However you can at any time pretty much be attacked during neutral special or down special anyway. He's always one step away from just getting blown up, and that's honestly a good thing. I do think maybe if anything, again, may be not easy enough for that to happen and he may have worked better as more of a glass cannon.

Most of the moves are really good but where I had some issues was a few select moves. The uair I felt was a bit weird as a disjointed attack to throw his fishbowl, just aesthetically I wasn't sure I liked the mindgame potential with his side special and seems to dilute if nothing else, the uniqueness and how satisfying it'd be to pull off that animation fully. The jab is a super unorthodox jab and I like the animation, but it's perhaps a bit far for a jab and seems bad (which is good, as he needs such a weakness) as a basic jab. He doesn't really have that many weaknesses like that built in, but I'm still not sure I liked that move being such a flashy jab.

I could go into further nitpicking but beyond that, there wasn't a ton else I could really criticise in the set. Every move was trying extremely hard to be relevant and hit the mark almost every time. It also managed to avoid just giving him too few direct melee attacks, even if they are at times supplemented by follow up options, sweetspots and the like. Mostly thinking of playstyle glue moves like fair, dair and utilt, all necessary close-range melee to really make his advantage state/duplicate combo game viable.

As far as the flashier stuff, I was a fan of fsmash and that fun way it can group up its hitbox and the dsmash trap (a surprising and fun utility as a trap). On the grab game I really enjoyed fthrow (feels like the best parts of Vulture's grab game) and uthrow/dthrow for opposite reasons (one being a fun KO throw on platforms, while the other was a far more complex pay off for illusions/set up). I could go into how much I liked mega-Mysterio too, and how much fun you got out of stuff like his "mini-Mysterios," but it almost feels a waste because that stuff's obviously awesome! Just the idea of creating a giant Mysterio is amazing.

I was definitely a big fan of this set, I think my only big gripe here is with a couple of moves I didn't hugely like, and a general feeling he is at least a little bit overtuned. I like how you weren't being too cautious in giving him all these capabilities to counter-balance how realistically, he's probably going to need it. At the same time I don't tend to write super long comments on sets like this I don't either really like or dislike and you can probably guess which one it is here. I'll leave it to a fitting mystery if I do like this the most... but suffice to say it's one of the best sets this MYM, and undoubtedly your best! Very nice work Kupa.
 
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UserShadow7989

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Han-Tyumi dilliam dilliam

I should really apologize for the late comment, but this set caught my eye and I wanted to give your stuff a bit more attention. Han-Tyumi is certainly a neat character pick with a lot of loving references, but its tools feel a little redundant and under-built by just one or two details each; for example, Han-Tyumi has several good shield punish/damaging options that felt like they could be varied a bit more. The NSpec Puddles should mention whether foes take a flinching hit for 6% every second or passive small damage ticks that add up to 6% (the latter applies more long-term pressure, but the former could actually bait shield and makes them getting out an immediate priority).

You could probably afford to differ NSpec and DSmash by having one low enough to shield poke and the other higher up to continue damaging weakened shields. Dash Attack would slot in nicely with these two shield-killers as a shorter-range option Han-Tyumi can toss out without having to commit nearly as much to, and the Down Tilt vegemite could... well, it does have a smaller/weaker but less committal trade off built in compared to the puddles, but there's probably something that could be done there. Perhaps doing next to nothing to shields by contrast, pushing foes back with no shield damage, which encourages foes to block it if they end up caught by the initial hit?

A separate example is that there's a few moves that are said to do something well but lack any mechanical info that tells us how; FSmash for example needs to note either poor shield damage or long active frames that are hard to dodge/jump over to bait shields as intended. I saw where you were going with it, a move that can do double duty of conditioning the foe to use their shield so your various stage control options can whittle it down, while the sweetspot also rewards you for zoning foes properly to make spacing it easier, but the set doesn't quite have the level of added touches to get there.

Besides that, the moves do have basic but necessary bread and butter usages that I feel could be expanded on; Neutral Aerial for example could drag the foe with Han-Tyumi while he moves/falls before the launch, and landing cancels out before the remaining hits, letting him drag opponents into a vomit puddle to make them face the choice of punishing and eating some damage or retreating and letting Han-Tyumi recover/gain ground. Some do have logical ties into the set already that aren't noted, like Down Aerial acting not only as a kill as noted, but being a good way to smack foes into your ground set-up and possibly start a tech chase situation at low-mid percents (which Han-Tyumi could logically exploit the hell out of, given foes will find most places to roll or bounce to covered in harmful effects).

My only other complaint is that the throws could use more elaboration on uses; you have a nice spread of spacing, killing, comboing, and utility throws, but it feels like the set fizzles out on its momentum here. The bury throw for example has obvious synergy with Han-Tyumi's vomit for how much damage it can pile on between the foe being buried and time spent standing there from his grab. I'd make his grab itself hard to land as a result, maybe a bit laggy, but note it as a good punish (or shield punish) and maybe 50/50ing with one of his faster inputs to tie it into the set. The combo throw putting the foe up could note good short-hop aerials to use with it (since Up Tilt might have a bit of an issue due to lack of stun or knockback except point-blank), and the spacer throw could mention ways Han-Tyumi can immediately apply pressure out of the throw between putting foes in a bad spot and quick options he can use out of dash/a short-hopped Forward Air bone, etc.

One final thing that jumped out at me early on: I feel in addition to the up/left/right throw options with Side Special, holding down could allow Han-Tyumi to start reeling the opponent in- dragging them through his set-up and/or positioning them for the throw, though with foes able to escape the grab state still with normal difficulty if he gets greedy.

It feels like a set that shows you've got great potential and a taste for odd picks, so after reading Han-Tyumi, I became even more excited for a few of the set plans you've previewed! I'm sorry for only getting this comment out at the 11th hour, but I hope it's helpful to you.
 

FrozenRoy

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Since we have a few people who are preeeetty close to the end but a handful of sets away, we're just gonna advance the end date to January 31st. The end of it at 12 PM PST, as normal. This means edits will close at January 30th, 12 PM PST. It's worth a little extra time to make sure people get lists in, y'know? Would appreciate those who ARE close to done to finish and get them in ASAP, and don't expect more extensions unless something pops up.
 

FrozenRoy

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Mina Merrel and Hina Aquila (Hina Merrel U UserShadow7989 )

Really, though, those sets have some funny parallels to them as cute plant manipulators whose sets are based around a duo fighter concept, have -ina names and six letter last names. They even do the different colored petal stuff! I wonder if there was any inspiration?

Getting right into it, Hina has a lot of good points to her that I really loved. The Scarecrows are a pretty interesting puppeteering, duo set style of set, it's pretty fun to see this, Ernest Amano and my own Rufus shinra in the same contest. I would even say that if you look at all these sets, and funny enough I read Amano just before Hina, you can get a sharp look at how you, me and Smady differ as setmakers. I always love to see stuff like that in contests. But I digress. The duo set is really fun, with the power of Hina doubling / tripling her attacks or getting to use hitboxes with her later constructs being balanced by their extreme fragility against opponents. I do wonder if the fragility is a bit much, but given Hina can pull off some really crazy stuff with them, especially when factoring in the range of some of her attacks, the ways she can push and pull with her versatile Up Special or the effects of her many Blooms.

In fact, I actually thought the Blooms were one of the coolest parts of the set, giving Hina a legion of simple-to-understand traps that had a lot of complexity to them, my favorite was the Thorn Blooms for sure but I feel like the set got a lot out of all of them. Making them mobile via moving scarecrows, growing them on pillars or having them become Bloom Pillars (why do they lose the hitbox, though?), there's a whole lotta fun stuff when it comes to how they work, the Up Special is one of those hookshot-style Up Specials that I quite love and combining them with Hina's scarecrows and Planters (truly, Hina is the one who killed Mr. Peanut). All of it works quite well with Hina's IC-style Scarecrows, it is an extremely strong and inventive base.

With how much is going on though one issue I have with this set is that it feels overstuffed, particularly in terms of input overload: Pretty much every special that Hina has itself has like 3 variations based on input usage. This in itself is not too bad, Ken/Ryu/Terry all do this in Smash, but Hina's an extremely complex set to begin with as she has to pay attention to multiple possibly-desync'd Scarecrows, up to 5 different blooms and also Planters, the Bloom menu is fortunately pretty intuitive so that's not as big of an issue. The one that bothers me is the moving scarecrow input: each of the three options for the Scarecrows do very different things but the inputs are pretty close to each other, and more importantly the moving Scarecrows cause all of Hina's other Scarecrow setup to move when they're input apparently without any way to stop it once it gets started. When Hina has so much careful but hard to keep setup, it feels like it's too annoyingly easy to just yeet your entire setup when you instead mean to use one of your main combo starters/extenders or summon the most critical part of your set. It's true you can make this argument for other sets, but most don't have the sheer amount of options going on in Hina's Specials. And considering it's still in 9 star it obviously isn't something that can't be overcome, but I do like things slightly more clean.

I should note I do really like the effect the moving Scarecrows have on the set, I just wish they could be implemented into the set more cleanly.

Moving away from all of that, the rest of Hina is also veeery strong design-wise! The Smash charge cancel not just functioning as a normal mindgame but a way to desync is clever and one thing I appreciated in this set was not making it overly difficult to desync or otherwise play around with the partner, using the canceling itself to basically "store" Smash Attacks in them as a trap is also a good idea. This set has a bunch of standout moves to it: Forward Smash plays around with a lot of Hina's elements on a simple to understand move, such as how it works with her destructible Planters and charge cancels, and is one of the moves that gives Hina the most psuedo-ninja feel too. Down Smash was a bit hard for me to understand at first but is a cool temporary pillar once understood. Forward Tilt is a very satisfying spacer that has frightening Scarecrow use and I like the little bonk animation, Down Tilt's perhaps a bit odd feeling of an animation on Down Tilt but has plenty of gameplay value, I like how the drop-down platform hitting not only synergizes with her Planters but with stuff like Scarecrows patrolling a main stage where she can then hit with Down Tilt if they try to hide under a platform and similarly allows her to control space under her when opponents are trying to move around her plants. It's a simple move but gives plenty of depth in how it is used. Dash Attack is another attack that really gets across the not-quite-ninja feel and feels like a hype payoff to all of this setup with the Scarecrows, also more good added characterization.

Some other moves I thought were fun: Up Tilt (some real Earthbender lookin' stuff going on here!), Forward Aerial, Forward Throw (This is a pretty classic throw for setup sets, but the way Hina's setup works makes it even more interesting than normal) and Back Throw. This set is pretty lacking in any moves that seemed poorly made to me, although Up Smash is a bit worrying (and was also a confusing read the first time).

I will make a note of something I thought while reading it, which is while Smady kinda had the feeling the set might not be that strong, I actually think she's on the stronger end, although not "overpowered". While she does have some lacking coverage areas, Up Smash does sound like it can cover shorthop/fullhop which is a big thing. She has a lot of attacks that are both fast and range-y, with Forward Tilt being a key example of strong range on a fast and hard to punish attack, and with Scarecrows has a "range" of 7.5 Units, I do put that in quotation marks because them overlapping means it won't truly be 7.5 Units but it is still a lot. Hina can probably wall out a lot of characters with just Forward Tilt decently and has options like Blooms even w/o Scarecrows, solid KO power, multiple movement tools such as Forward Smash, Up Special and Dash Attack, and so on. She does have clear weaknesses and Scarecrows being so integral yet frail means I don't think she'd become a total menace, but she does seem like a high tier character to me.

Overall, Hina is a pretty dang good set that is quite creative and inventive, and it's placement on my rankings is more an indication of how strong the top end of the contest is then it is saying Hina isn't "that" good. Wriggle's got a lot of her own creativity, for example, but backs it up with one of UserShadow's best melee games, IMO it's a bit more cohesive than Hina's which at times can be somewhat disjointed. Hina's characterization is also top notch, like pretty much every US set this contest. This set would certainly be a fine winner if it did so, but I am pulling for Louise!

Dragonmaid Haachama (Dragonmaid Chame Katapultar Katapultar )

Gotta say when I opened this set up, I did NOT expect what is clearly the best Dragonmaid set we've gotten! Given Chame's characterization in the set, that is also pretty funny in and of itself. I'd also say this set was really nice to read after so many long sets (I read this directly after Hina, who is well over 20k): A direct 10,597 word set was a treat, and I think Chame does an excellent job showing you don't NEED to be a giant set to be truly great!

Chame thrives in laser focus on her mechanics to the point of being very self-aware of it ("...Is Chame cleaning to build up a meter? Umm, no. Was Chame supposed to do that? Chame thought it would be more simple without one.") and she's come here to do one thing: Clean. I do like how this parallels Hauskee's own mechanic of housekeeping and cleaning, who also didn't have a meter, when Chame is characterized in this set as obviously adoring her head maid. This entire set has some really funny and clever writing that gives Chame a ton of character ("Chame can’t handle it anymore - the stress of social interaction has gotten to her!") and adds to the breezy reading, I'd also like to note.

But what good is an easy read if the set isn't good? Don't worry, Chame's got you covered! Her gimmick of cleaning areas is not only intuitive, but gives her a ton of options to play off it, the coolest of which is her teleporting fireball! Perhaps slightly inspired by the psuedo-Dragonmaid Aki, with Chame's clean areas acting like a bit of a screen for her fireballs to travel around, although what it actually most reminds me of is my MYM15 Kaguya set which allowed projectiles to "warp" in a similar manner. Chame gets two options with her Fireballs' warping, either allowing them to warp "around" a clean patch to avoid it, or warp BETWEEN clean patches as danger zones! Mixing these up with Chame's melee game is critical, and I would be remiss not to mention her ability to instead use them as zones to essentially "deactive" the Fireball but keep it out. Due to the way clearing out cleaning works, this ends up working like a rather unique trap!

Chame combines this with her own teleports on Up Special, which not only allow her to traverse through her cleaning spots, but even works during her aerials. Combined with her fireball play, Chame becomes a deadly air fighter and combo character if she's doing a good job in neutral, able to scare opponents away from them with the threat of the fireballs' tricky angles and the thread of using the cleaning spots as combo tools, with the fireballs being great combo extenders if opponents keep away as it gives her spacing to hit into them. And if opponents don't respect her cleaning spots, such as sticking inside one in order to avoid an invisible fireball or one large enough Chame can't teleport herself/a fireball, then she gets to punish them with a high powered Neutral Special! This, in turn, plays into the fact that removing clean spots is oh-so-simple (just move through them!) yet can be oh-so-risky. This is a great way to use her setup to create natural and tense gameplay, and it's easy to imagine really fun neutral as enemies try to bait Chame into blowing her setup early by dash dancing towards it or whatnot, while Chame herself threatens opponents from the other side with a very nervous smile (they won't be mad at her for this, right? That's what Chame hopes!).

This is backed up by some wonderful yet simple melee, moves such as Neutral Aerial whose cleaning + long duration allow Chame to loop it some as a teleport or trick the opponent into attacking only to whiff as she teleporte away in a panic! Forward Aerial abuses its two hit nature + how Chame's teleport works to give her unique sweetspot options on a second hit, Down Aerial takes advantage of the float warp as well to give Chame a fun take on a stall than fall and the idea of teleporting down faster for a stronger sweetspot in addition to the normal teleport-fall timing mixup shenanigans. Forward Smash is a perfect fit of a simple move with multiple applications that take full advantage of the set's core: A potentially very strong KO move with a somewhat odd knockback angle to work with, the odd knockback angle means Chame gets to combo it when her cleaning spaces are used best, and her panicky nature plus the gust cause her to fly away to safety! Smartly, the move's odd knockback means in turn it doesn't get the safety when the KO power is at it's strongest: Chame needs to risk more to get that super early, back to the ledge kill! Moves like Down Tilt combine fun flavor (oh no, poor girl...she needs some help...) with simple and effective usage of the terrain, and I agree with Smady that this set pulls off the "accidental strength" style quite well with moves like Jab, FOrward Tilt and Down Tilt.

Even this set's simple moves play into it well, like Up Aerial's potential float jump laddering meaning opponents can't just focus on clearing clean spots horizontally, or Back Aerial's speed increase being important for covering Chame's back when she's teleporting + giving her an odd combo ender if she can get foes thrown behind her (although not mentioned, fireballs could totally do this too!). Back Throw is probably one of the best time bomb throws I've seen in a while, and I was known as THE time bomb throw guy back in MYM16!, by changing the complexity of how Chame's tense neutral plays out with longer term clean-zone creating on the foe for them to deal with. The time bomb not ticking down in clean areas is very smart, foes being incentivized to play in that danger zone of staying in the clean areas to avoid punishment of warping fireballs and the like vs. letting Chame get much more setup since it doesn't tick down inside and the possibility of punishment with Neutral Special. I was also a big fan of Forward Throw's take on the Ridley move, making it into a panicked hug as she flies away being really funny too, it's great fun.

Overall, Chame is an amazing set that produce with an instantly fun idea and keeps it as a solid whole through the entire set. Nothing feels out of place and even standard moves work into a precise playstyle, with plenty of more flashy options to ensure the set isn't boring. I've always been a big fan of clean, direct and smart sets like this (Mami is another one of that style), and the latest Dragonmaid does it quite well. Not only was it my favorite Dragonmaid set, I would also say it was cleanly my favorite Katapultar set in a strong Katapultar contest! If you haven't given this set much thought, then I heartily endorse giving it another thought, because it is quite clever when dove into.

We better get a Laudry set eventually, too! I remember there was a Laudry preview, which seemed potentially interesting, very much not in Chame's style but that's not a bad thing at all, and Laudry's personality means it does seem like she'd be a more chaotic and wild set.
 

FrozenRoy

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I did some last minute edits to Rufus, including:

- A new Neutral Aerial and Forward Aerial for Darkstar

- Up Aerial slightly had it's animations tweaked.

- I added a good amount of extras: Alternate colors/outfits, entrance animation, victory animations, loss animation and classic mode route.

Hopefully you all enjoy these changes!
 

Smady

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Smash Daddy's Top 13 MYM23 Movesets

It’s that time once again, as has happily become tradition my top x list of my favourite sets is an entertaining recap/impromptu ranking of the past Make Your Move’s best submissions. We’ll be going over my very favourite sets and yes, once again despite no Xehanort his blatant curse continues as we have a Top 13! That means my 8 SVs, 3 RV+ and 2 top RVs, so lets get right to it. These will be in collapse tags as usual to avoid thread clutter.



13. Mami

This set is quite excellent and I totally get why it has a big fanbase. For one thing, as I said in chat, it manages to invalidate the other very boring and outdated Mami set in a single move. That’s pretty dang impressive. It’s somewhat similar to Rufus in how it’s focused on a lot of gunplay and yet every little pirouette of these guns is made into a remarkably fresh attack that never feels redundant. What Slavic lacks in Roy’s expertise in these little flourishes is more than made up for in pure mechanical depth, as Mami feels like a bomb ready to explode at any moment with her Tiro Finale! An excellent mechanic that gives insane power to a potential shot of her gun built up into a passive charge prior to her attack, giving her a fitting trump card for whenever the foe is put on the back foot.

Besides that great double-punch of fun melee and great central mechanics, the set is a breathtaking Slavic presentation all around. I love the writing style of the set and the effortless, fun turns of phrase throughout what could’ve been a particularly dry dull set. This is helped out by Mami’s ability to set and forget her rifles in the air so that in many cases she can pick them right up in later moves, always giving a good outlet for creativity where moves could otherwise have sunk. Slavic has come full circle back around to the greatness of sets like Gamagori in my opinion as Gnasty Gnorc was not as good as Mami but shockingly good for such a stupid and ugly villain. What defines Slavic’s style to me is his very engaging writing style and penchant for unique twists on otherwise standard mechanics which is no better shown than Mami. I’m very excited to see what you have in store for us next MYM, Slavic!



12. skekMal, the Hunter

Kupa’s had quite an amazing Make Your Move and has fully settled back into the (king of) swing of things. skekMal is clearly not his best set and it may surprise readers this was in fact my least favourite Kupa set of the MYM, yes Kupa just had that good of a contest. Where skekMal excels is in a similar realm to Primordial Darkness, doubling down on super heavy balance using all sorts of tricks. In skekMal’s case this is done through the Gobbles, a trap turned juggle tool and a “rage” mechanic that’s a neat twist on Incineroar’s Revenge.

What really puts skekMal ahead of the rest and what nearly brought him to the RV+ part of my vote list was the focus on weapons and the exciting potential for throwing them around, Z-dropping and momentum physics of tossing around the things. On top of the sheer enjoyment factor of being a giant pterodactyl monster juggling giant swords with multiple arms the set builds an intriguing system around them that would put fear into the eyes of anyone who tries to one-up the vivacious villain, setting up all manner of hijinx. It’s a great idea for the set’s balance too leaning on these 50/50 situations, insurmountable pressure that’s created from covering the stage in massive flying swords and when it comes down time to get up close and personal skekMal isn’t lacking in that department either, boasting a range of both crushing, devastating melee attacks and more precise bone crackers that are entirely fit for purpose.

I’d be remiss not to mention the painstaking lengths to which Kupa went in developing the characterisation of skekMal, this has become part-and-parcel of Kupa’s observant movesetting style in recent times. skekMal is made to feel intimidating in the same way as an approaching Ganondorf just about to dash attack you at 150% and yet has all the bells and whistles you’d hope for out of the titular hunter. It’s an eclectic mix of direct attacks and indirect traps that make for a quasi Snake mixed with Incineroar for the most part, implemented in the game it’s a fresh take on how you can overcome the inherent super heavy struggle through sheer force of options on top of the usual power. Just like a certain crocodile we all know and love. Token shout out for helping to make Dark Crystal a franchise, we did it Kupa!



11. Ditto

This is another shocking moveset to be this high considering Almand is relatively new to the community but it’s a well earned accolade for sure. Ditto takes a seemingly impossible character and makes something pretty fantastic out of it, designing the set in a way that few people would’ve really thought of before. This is done by fusing together several interpretations of Ditto’s canon powers from a 1:1 transformation, largely buried away in the mechanics of the set much like other copycat sets, “failed” transformations which is most of the set (a very wise decision) and directly copying singular moves. There was much debate in the past over copycat sets and Almand managed to sidestep almost all issues with them in one fell swoop, showing a very smart approach to Smash and game design.

The individual moves are all really well done as well, ranging from a Thrawk (Throh and Sawk fused together in a mangled amalgamation) to a raging Cranidos with a Rampardos head. The collection of transformations is a strange, hilarious combo of outrageous misunderstood Pokémon you can see vaguely why they would be interpreted this way. This isn’t all there is to the set either as Ditto has a handful of important regular attacks that while unimpressive, do matter for his playstyle not being too chaotic.

The set wouldn’t amount to much without all of the complex mechanics set out at the start of the set, in what has become a trademark of Almand’s sets this MYM. The status effects are integral to the set’s balance so that constantly peppering the foe with these strange attacks can end up paying off in big, unexpected ways that can then lead into landing one of those not so flattering KO moves that would normally be for show. In a fitting way, the playstyle is somewhat accidental, while avoiding the tackiness you’d expect, Ditto falling his way up to victory.

Surprisingly this set is both very engaging and has a great way of unloading tons of information on the reader. We long since dropped the habit of outlining hitbox data and other pertinent information after moves and yet Almand has managed to bring it back in his own unique style. It’s why his long sets, two coming in around the 20k words mark, certainly don’t feel anywhere near that long. It might be a part of why they’ve become so popular as a nice surprise when you realise the entertaining ride you’re in for once you get past the packed mechanics section. All in all it’s easy to see why this is a strong contender for an unlikely fighter, netting a RV+!



10. Amadeus Wolfgeist

This set went up and down in my estimations but the reason it ended up settling this high is it’s simply a very engaging, charming set that never let up on the creativity. Much like the old Baron set from way back (ironic given that was the same MYM as the old Pennywise) Amadeus is packed full of interesting and creative attacks where every input is trying something pretty outlandish. This wouldn’t have worked well on just any character but Kupa chose an eccentric mad ghost, so it’s a fantastic fit and for me is what put the set into range above a few others vying for the spot.

The set is somewhat of a 2in1 like Hina, Amano and Rufus, though takes it easy with only a few strong Piano moves on top of his regular ghostly moveset. The piano can be summoned any time after finishing up a combo that’s open ended and useful enough, actually noted at the end of the set to give more insight into how this could be implemented in the game. Once you’ve built up enough points, perhaps you could interpret this as some kind of strange twisted performance art, then Wolfgeist earns the ability to summon the piano for a few choice super attacks. These aren’t just broken final smash tier attacks though pack more of a wallop than your average strong smash either in power or for sheer stage control presence.

The characterisation of the set is another part of a winning performance. The set loves to be as bombastic and showy as possible, almost to the point it’s overbearing, but stands well clear of anything just dumb or annoying for players. Every attack has a distinctive key frame and stands out well as far as game design 101 goes, fulfilling a necessary purpose to work in the playstyle while pushing the envelope in just how much you can cram into a pretty standard character’s wheel house. Admittedly one of the messier designed sets but there is method to the madness and there’s no set quite like it this MYM, despite not having the strongest concepts, just due to the way Kupa manages to cut loose and do whatever felt fun for each move. It’s an extremely engaging set that manages to hit every note and any bum notes it does hit is soon ignored once it hits its next exciting high.



9. Shou

This is another in Roy’s classic Touhou sets, and another late game addition to the contest similar to Utsuho from the previous MYM, Shou is certainly living up to the high standards set by the Elephant foot! Shou basically comes to the fight with practically infinite projectiles to fight the foe with that are packed into her specials and then later on uses a combination of various longer ranged weapon characters to further augment her projectile focus away from solely a camping or zoning playstyle. It’s reminiscent of Byleth (makes sense, as that’s one of Roy’s mains and underused in MYM), Corrin (again underused) and Marth entirely for his tipper. With such inspiration, it’s unsurprising the set has such a strong melee game despite a hyper focus on these projectiles largely in the way of projectile traps that Shou herself can set off.

Set off her own projectiles as a trap, isn’t that a little odd, you may ask, well no. Shou in fact has a number of naturally reflecting attacks of her own to bat back any projectiles, hostile to her or not, to create quite spectacular arrays of fireworks around the stage going off all angles of the stage making life misery for the foe. The annoyance doesn’t stop there for them as they have to stay out of the way of her powerful sweetspots and keep an eye on her pagoda too, lest it become so strong it buffs her attacks to the point she can just go up and flick them to death like a sweetspotted Byleth side special.

The set continues Roy’s loving portrayal of the Touhou girls with a fun characterisation that pushes the intriguing character of Shou. She’s misunderstood by design, sort of in-between things as a deity created out of a misinterpretation, funnily enough a bit like Ditto’s own misinterpretations of his own Pokémon, To me this invites the reader in to make their own judgment of whether all of the chaotic projectiles and sweetspots were really Shou playing expertly or merely like Ditto falling into success by accident and the chaos just that, amidst a mess of self-inflicted projectiles. Not sure if that was the intention, but it was an amusing thought nonetheless.

Roy’s writing is among the strongest in the contest and this set really showcases how well he can glide through complex attacks and animations without any breaks. Shou has a few complex attacks like her fthrow using a cross-shaped projectile that bends and twists with pagoda power, but Roy as in many moves has the right presentation at hand to guide the reader through, in what could otherwise have been quite a messy or weird move. It’s why Roy can afford to get a bit more intricate in his moves than other MYMers and mix in ambitious complex projectile tennis with some criminally underused inspiring moves, even from fairly new Smash newcomers, creating something refreshingly new.



8. Wriggle Nightbug

Wriggle is another great Touhou set this MYM, this time focusing on the playground potential for a character who loves creepy crawlies. Wriggle’s equipped with several ways to control her friends-turned-projectiles making them home in on her or extending their life span a little beyond their normal capacity, a technique sure to get under the skin of any opponent. On top of that she has some of those creative smashes you’d expect out of a US set. The Mole Cricket in particular is a fun and powerful source of stage control, while the fsmash is a typical satisfying big projectile fsmash conjured up around one of Wriggle’s bug friends.

The biggest appeal of the set is definitely in its many quirky, fitting attack animations and hitboxes. Wriggle is a very unorthodox fighter largely focused on unusual manipulation of her own set up, be it her lingering hitboxes she brings back to life, her high-risk high-reward attacks and very specific bug-sized hitboxes conjured up out of fairy dust. US hit the nail on the head with her characterisation too feeling like a first boss who is largely showing the ropes to the player with seemingly non-threatening, but in reality quite threatening abilities. What may first appear to be quite gimmicky is in fact a potential onslaught of pressure and stage presence. US finds time as well for a moment of strong personality here and there too, Wriggle being the usual brand of likable character Touhou is known for. It’s a quite different approach to Roy’s usual Touhou set and it’s hard to pick my favourite, but I’m glad they’re both around.



7. Primordial Darkness

This set was one of the most hyped up in the MYM and it did not disappoint bringing a super heavyweight experiment that’s never been done to this extent before. Double down would not be enough, I’d say a tripling down on the downsides of a super heavy in a character who would be the slowest in Ultimate, having the worst frame data and a hurtbox that’s more or less giant compared to most of the cast. Why not go all the way? This set then uses that as a springboard to say “well now that’s in play, lets just go nuts with super armour, power, range and projectile spam!” I’m very happy to see you return to such a character as it feels like you’ve not really handled a super heavy of this calibre in many years, I can’t even remember the last character that was both this big, and this is of course by far the slowest you’ve done for both frame data and speed.

The balance of the set is clearly a big part of the appeal as it does successfully juggle the negatives and give an appealing set of positives to outweigh them. It’s not too complicated either as merely getting out your delayed projectiles then creates hard interactions with your down smash and simply buffing yourself with armour creates a few choice differences in a few other moves.

The armours themselves are surely a highlight too as a Monado-Arts-But-For-The-Big-Boned, making him not that slow for either speed or frame data or even bulkier (which is definitely the best for how fun it is), purely offensive (quite insane honestly, but works well). “Or” is important here, as the fact only one can be applied at a time means PD will always have some huge anchor of weaknesses tying him down, as should be the case.

In the same vein as Kupa’s sets I found this set very engaging, despite the fact it’s delectably simple. There’s not a whole lot to him to be frank, and yet the set is always very engaging to read and conjures up many fun images of how this bizarrely min maxed character might play out if implemented. The simpler seemingly quite rigid moves like Ganondorf in Ultimate become fascinating in the context of his super heavy moveset, imagining the various match ups that might develop around the character. It really shouldn’t work, and yet it does. It’s particularly exciting if you do main a super heavy and are interested in the genre so it felt very appealing to me on a mechanical level, which is not often the case in MYM even if we have our fair share of super heavies, it’s rare to see them experimented on to this much success. Hope to see more sets, dare I say just like this one or similar to it, in your future FA.



6. Rufus Shinra

This is a great 2in1 set where Rufus and his dog Darkstar. What’s really impressive about this set is how it synergises the two separate characters around his simply switching mechanic, a direct switching move a la Pokémon Trainer, but also has ways to switch immediately after certain moves. This ability can’t be understated in how much fun it is to envision as Rufus is built around the ability to switch on the fly after some moves to directly combo or create nightmarish stage control presence for a foe. The coin laser is an awesome move that lets Rufus casually cover vast amounts of stage all at once while keeping the balance in check, a feat in of itself and I think speaks for itself making a 2in1 of guy with gun and a dog with competent melee work on top of massive stage-covering death lasers.

The melee of the set post-specials is consistently good, if not great much of the time. Rufus is another set in the mold of Roy’s beloved gunslingers, like the amazing Hol Horse last MYM or sets such as McCree in the past. Where this expertise is shown off is many fun moves where Rufus can both shoot and fight melee at the same time, usually one then the other. This is doubled up in fun when after pistol whipping the foe with his shotgun, Rufus can follow up his gunshot with a direct attack by Darkstar! The amount of projectiles or disjoints at Rufus’ disposal is incredible and a fascinating take on a glass cannon too, given Darkstar can fall away quickly when mismanaged. This MYM had many takes on the 2in1 or multiple characters in one set but Rufus stands out as the best take on a lighter character relying on oppressive offence, rather than the more defensive sets. As Roy said in his Hina comment it’s cool to compare and contrast to other 2in1 sets this contest.

I had a few big problems with this set that were ironed out in a late round of edits. The Darkstar neutral aerial and forward aerial were both not very expansive and the uair's animation for Darkstar was awkward, but Roy went back and wrote a couple of very good new aerials and adjusted the animation on the uair slightly. These changes were pretty big and rose this set quite a bit from where I thought of it initially. In addition, while not something to really factor into a set's quality necessarily, giving the option to use the original FF7 alt costume and all the extra references definitely was a very appealing bit of flair to add to the set. Plus any character that references Hojo, Heidegger, Palmer, Scarlet and so on is someone I would want to play in a real game.



5. Hotaru Futaba

This is a fighting game inspired set and one of Kat’s best this MYM, an impressive feat given Kat posted so many great sets. Hotaru is fun as it’s a very different kind of FG set compared to say, Alex and Hugo last MYM, as she instead focuses on more detailed things like frame data, exact combos and mix-ups, as well as considerable focus on weighing the risk of going all in on certain attacks. By comparison, it does feel fittingly more like a SNK fighter than the Capcom SF sets we mostly get because of this heavy focus on precise frame data (some of Kat’s most thoughtful of all time I’d say) and positioning based strategies.

The set in general gets the most out of elegantly simple concepts, the specials being foremost as an example. Most of them are nothing too flashy, but all fill an important role in her playstyle, checking various options for the foe and checking off potential counter plays the foe can do, reminding me a bit of my own Hugo set, but with an almost completely opposite playstyle and character.

Hotaru is not purely reactionary however and can go for massive reads with huge potential for punishment. In this respect, the use of Go is quite different too from a typical meter mechanic, being more of an X Factor or comeback mechanic than something that's a slow burn. This is absolutely worked into the mechanics of the set too, giving it a whole lot of depth that's unique for Make Your Move.

I would also be remiss to not mention the TOP mechanic, letting the player for Hotaru pick where to set when her Go mechanic is active. This is made far more interesting due to the small amounts of healing and damage mitigation throughout the set to let Hotaru etch her way back into the Go threshold, further encouraging precise, intelligent play. The amount of technical prowess and very particular information on techniques such as cancels, exact combos and specific follow-ups from move to move give the set the same feel as a proper fighting game set. It's also impressive to me how many simple moves the set manages to give a particularly important purpose, not losing sight of how a fighting game set like this does rely much of the time on these bridging attacks in-between its flashier attacks.



4. Pennywise the Dancing Clown

Now I may be biased as the very first sentence of this set not only references me by name, but the fat boy who I'm friends with too. However upon further reflection it's hard to not be a huge fan of this set, beyond the obvious amazing comedy and characterisation that's always a given with Kat's movesets. The greatest strength in this set lays in the chosen creative moves for the melee and interesting core concepts revolving around subterfuge and manipulation.

The core of the set takes a page out of the old Pennywise book but runs in a wholly new direction. Balloons float to the top of the pile once more naturally but it's more about the Fridge, Pennywise's various mix ups and approaches, in a similar vein to Kat's Hotaru set it's a set all about playing against the opponent. To this end, Pennywise uses his acrobatic nature as a performing clown to overwhelm foes in his scary assault. The fsmash is a great move similar to Primordial Darkness' dsmash that takes a ridiculously slow move and turns it into a circus of fun interactions and in this case, turns the set up Pennywise put out into a physics playground.

The set has all manner of fun animations and attacks. Pennywise brings out his iconic claw you see everywhere in It merchandising for the old television series and brings on board fun imagery like the dog head, the moon and the Dead Lights. These all link into Pennywise's core theme of tripping up foes with counter hits and putting them into disadvantage. It's a more subtle Pennywise than you may remember, though he has had a lot of time to work on his melee. I will say again that the meta self awareness of the set, comedy and characterisation is as good as it gets. This set was tremendous fun and I'd love to see more sets of this nature looking again at old classic sets and giving them a fresh coat of paint. Great contest, Kat!



3. Hina Merrel

This set really impressed me and I was already a big fan of US's sets ,but this one stood out to me for its great creativity and interesting concepts. Hina conjures up a Scarecrow she can use either disjointed from herself, or to attack alongside her as a puppet much like Rosalina and Luma. This can get very fun as the scarecrow's attacks can vary a great deal from Hina's version of the moves, giving unique combos and follow-ups, while Hina is given some built-in weaknesses where it's a symbiotic relationship for the two to work together and win.

On top of the scarecrows Hina has some fun ideas too creating planters that become stage constructs to throw out her various seeds to create four distinctly different blooms. The set has a lot of interesting interplay with these different blooms that cover the stage in brambles or other plant life. Besides your regular ole pressure game the brambles lead to unique combos and 50/50-like scenarios where Hina can put the foe on the back foot, in a similar way to Pennywise's pressure game.

What's fun about Hina is the characterisation, being a very likable and defined character despite being an OC and her high skill ceiling. Many of her moves have big blindspots and require a good bit of skill to make use of it, while always having some basic use in a casual setting. The way the scarecrow works is a good example of something that could've been a real mess in less capable handles. It all adds up to a greatly balanced set that nonetheless constantly is introducing fun new mechanics in most every move.

The use of kama in such a way as to create amazing hitbox coverage all over the stage is both a nice visual and a nice combination with all the scarecrow's hitboxes. I also liked the little flairs of character throughout the set such as on the ftilt where Hina's again a very likable goof, only sometimes. It's surprising too given the set already has so much going on, but shows one of US's strengths in just how much content he crams into his sets and gets the most out of them conceptually and their character. It's hard to find much wrong with the set at all as it walks a thin line of brilliantly creative and yet down to Earth practical all at once.



2. Mysterio

A fascinating rise by Kupa recently and encapsulated perfectly by none other than this set, a great and very “Kupa” set by any means as well, you can even see traces of the old MYMX era within this set, only updated to match modern sensibilities. You can see the same concepts of Pennywise with invisibility duplicates, mInDgAmEs, the sheer creativity of the attacks and other sets of the era except without any of the negatives inherent to those sorts of moves. This is no small deal as these ideas are not hard to make into a modern Make Your Move set, I can even see some Jarvis inspiration in the Giant Mysterio special! I said this all already in my big comment for the set.

Mysterio represents Kupa’s style at its best beyond the concepts too, a strong presentation and forceful writing, deliberate ideas, it’s not at all interpretative. Despite this every step of the way Kupa is taking plenty of risks in what kind of creative inputs he chooses to weave together with an unorthodox and poised take on balance. This isn’t a super heavy who is justified in having the odds stacked in his favour, a heavyweight but still quite nimble character that has a good recovery requires a very different argument for what Kupa does in this set.

The point is not whether I think the set is successful, I think for the most part it definitely is, it’s that Kupa has managed to put together a set that’s sold everyone on these bolds ideas that really interests me much more and has settled back into a highly respected set making position so many years after his most popular tenure back in the old days of MYMX. It’s no exaggeration to call this Kupa’s best MYM in a decade, with a huge gap in-between, the skill to which he combines highly volatile ideas then crams them with even more potentially explosive caveats, you can see how far he’s developed. It’s one of those sets where every move is memorable, even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything it’s doing at all times, which is why I can understand this set’s popularity too. That’s very much in line with the current philosophy in MYM and I’m happy that’s the way things have moved.

On a personal note I did at one point want to do a Mysterio set and I can’t imagine a better set for the character than this one. I never really thought of a Kupa Mysterio set – this was before the film after all, long ago – but when you see all these concepts together, it does make a lot of sense he would end up making the character. The subterfuge, mindgames, creativity and even the villainous show-off character is really all very Kupa, in an interesting way too. There’s something about the character and way that it all comes together in a peculiar fitting way that’s kind of captivating to me on top of how engaging the set is to read too, and one that gets me thinking about how Kupa approached the character. I wonder if Kupa realised how fast and loose he played it with this one, because it is an incredible effort, if this was a knowing attempt to aim high that worked, or simply a set that ended up growing into a massive project. In either case, it’s a pretty fantastic set.

For Kupa I think there’s going to be a big challenge to match this set that I would respect not being willing or able to dedicate such an effort at again. This may be the peak for Kupa and if it’s not I will be even more impressed. This set is not only super long but chock full of impressive amounts of efforts on well, everything. Not quite to the extent of my #1 arguably, and effort is not everything if misdirected, but I am so humbled all the time by how much time everyone is willing to spend ironing out these sets even as a lot of us are getting a lot more responsibilities. Whatever happens in the future sets like this one will surely stand the test of time even if they do show some wrinkles eventually!



1. “Lucky” Louise

As much as I gushed over Mysterio I would say Louise is the clear winner, though it’s not as if Mysterio isn’t also a great set, Louise is one of the best sets I have ever read. It definitely can be compared to the likes of Hol Horse, Xehanort, Ulrich, Ribby n Croaks, and so on from the pantheon of great Make Your Move projects. There’s so many layers to unpack as to why really, as it’s not just the set but all of the wonderful context that US builds around the set. It’s not just a great set but an amazing introduction to the FF! universe and game that US has created, with all the best approaches to the meta aspects and respect for the reader. For such a funny and charming concept it never resorts to the insultingly obvious or anything that ruins Louise’s character, despite always making fairly unscrupulous at the same time.

What’s so great about Louise’s set is how it introduces all of the FF! items so gracefully on moves, and has the right idea for how they would be implemented. The set is literally inventing entire meta parts of a fan game that it then pretends in genius fashion would be implemented into Smash in a particular way and implements them so creatively it’s easy to see how they’d be even more fun in Smash than this fake game due to their versatility. The safe comes to mind, the speed up to go so fast comes to mind, the chips come to mind, it’s all so wonderful really.

The set’s dice mechanic is also great not only giving bonuses for lower rolls on a few moves, but for giving a seemingly RNG-mechanic a defined way to improve the set so it’s not really RNG at all! It’s funny with characters like Hero already in Smash how well this set takes the idea and just says “nah, here’s a much better way of doing it” while adding oodles more depth at the same time. Every move has a fun interaction based off the die buffing it one way or another. On a meta level it’s super fun too acknowledging how even for her own set, Louise can stack the deck in her favour, almost like a hand is hovering over her at all times helping her “cheat.”

I feel like that analogy also sums up the excellence of this set. You can feel the creative hand of US all the time considering every little thing that goes into the set, to the point it feels insane how much effort and care went into making it. Every move is incredibly polished and not just in ways you may expect, but from tons of edits from feedback others have given and an attention to detail that’s second to none. It’s a set that had me literally amazed to see the nonstop flow of ideas that really never stopped, US going on full assault the entire time in a very long set. Despite how long it is too, and it took me a whole day to finish it, I can’t say I was bored the entire time.

The set is really interesting too in what kind of animations and attacks it used, memorably ending on Louise throwing a pepper over her head. It’s these eccentric ideas turned into attacks as well as more rudimentary, necessary ones that impress me as much as anything. Like Mysterio or Pennywise the set takes many a risk in the zany moves it chooses to create, not relying merely on some more basic melee, but not too much on the creative side either. It strikes a perfect balance of the two. It definitely veers more to the creative side though and that’s why it is so compelling to read.

The set does feel like the end result of years of US’s set making developing and I do really hope it wins, even in a contest of worthy winners. It’s too late for me to have any effect now with writing this, but I think it would be more than earned for all the writing and effort US put into this MYM, with so many amazing sets, plenty of which ended up on this list and another that still got a vote! I’ve certainly noticed just how much of his heart and soul goes into his sets and it’s a contrast to the way you see everyone else reflected in their work. Louise shows a really sincere dedication and true inspiration. It’s quite simply, one of the best sets of all time, it’s a spectacular work.
 

IvanQuote

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Lightning Round Comments. No funny pictures this time, sorry.

Ernest Amano:
My favorite this contest. Is a puppet moveset with a lot of personality and variety to it. Also it takes great restraint to not make Proto Badger into the eldritch meme that he is in the fandom.

Lucky Louise:
Great use of a "fan made" character that leans heavily into its lore. Probably the most stylized I'd say.

Amadeus Wolfgeist:
It certainly lived up to the hype the theorycrafting set forth. Great use of piano and stage control here.

Daisy:
An amazing yet natural Luigification of Daisy. I love how many references there are to previous games she was in.

Ditto:
This one caught me completely by surprise. It is an amazing set, especially for a newcomer. Both the natural moveset and copy mechanics are done wonderfully. Also between your previous sets, the abridged nature of the work lends itself to be better on the reading.

Prae Aerius:
Maybe I'm too new here, but having a team up moveset seems like such an amazing idea to me; you two certainly pulled it off synergistically. The writing was enjoyable to read all the way through.

Mami Tomoe:
I liked a lot of the moves in concept, but it felt like a lot of them blended together after a while. Incredibly ambitious in scope, but I feel that it got a bit bloated in "Mami pulls out gun and shoots" moves. Activating rifles from afar with ribbons is my favorite idea here.

Ganon:
This was another enjoyable read. While simple, all the pieces felt like they fit together splendidly.

Han-Tyumi:
I'm a sucker for POV or first person narration in movesets, and this did just that. I do think that concepts in this set got a little simple though, but it was a fun if not gross and tragic read.

Excalibur:
This set has a good use of weapon shifting, but competition was high enough that it barely fell off my vote list. Also idk if it's just a "me" thing, but with your sets in general the knockback section I found...difficult to parse? Maybe I'm more used to looking at things in kill percentages. Regardless, your output this contest was incredible.

Giovanni Potage:
My favorite set of yours this contest, having fun concepts that both helped and hindered certain moves. I'm also glad to see lesser covered franchises to be represented, and the uses of gifs and images all throughout illustrated each move beautifully. Main complaints, and this goes for your sets in general, are lack of knockback reference (putting kill percentages for most moves for example) and sentence structure. Cleaning up the syntax to me as nice and organized as the images are would go a long way.
 

FrozenRoy

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And with that...

Voting Period has ended! Expect the Top 50 soon, everyone!

Thank you to all 11 voters who got in their votelists this contest, a nice and healthy amount, and good luck to everyone to make it on!
 

ForwardArrow

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AND NOW, THE MYM24 RESULTS AS PRESENTED BY FORWARDARROW
(but actually written by disgruntled intern UserShadow)


"Hey hey, welcome back loyal viewers! We're here with the last ten contenders to claim the coveted and renown first place prize-" Louise paused a moment, eyes turning subtly toward the small cue card cupped in her fingers with her microphone. "Yes, the 'Make Your Move' awards are coming to a head. As always, I'm 'Lucky' Louise, and I'll be your humble host this evening! But I'm not the only one taking the main stage today; we're here to meet our eager competitors. In no particular order, we'll be starting with one of our station's very own: Mr. Ernest A-mano!" She smiled, putting a little flair and confidence into the reading of his name to cover the 'r' she'd almost inserted into it.

The light panned over to a jovial looking old man and a nervous looking young adult standing next to him. Lance Amano nervously waved a hand and shrunk behind his father, who simply held his palms to the crowd in a gentle calming gesture. He smiled politely as Louise held her microphone to him. "Now, now, now. You're all too kind. It's a privilege and an honor to be here tonight. But I couldn't have done it without my son." Lance straightened and put on a more neutral expression, trying to look dignified. Louise resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Louise nodded with all the false sweetness she could manage. "Humble as always, Mr. Amano. I don't think your son's contributions are in question to anyone, but I imagine he learned it all from his upbringing." The older gentleman pushed out his chest with pride at that, as the spotlight slid over to a small tv stand.

"Moving right on, not everyone could be here in person tonight- you know how it is, lots of things can impede travel: the recent lock downs, craving the flesh of TSA agents, not quite fitting in the door- but thanks to our interns and the wonders of technology, we've got a direct feed to our next lucky contestant. Put your hands together for a being whose gifts to humanity and wit are matched only by their vocabulary: the Primordial Darkness itself!" The tv clicked on, and Louise's ears immediately flattened against her head as an unholy screech punctuated by a terrified man's screams cut through the static. Lance dove underneath his seat, only for Ernest to dive behind him, as the remaining silhouetted contenders drew weapons of assorted shapes by pure instinct.

Louise grimaced as the feed cut out in the middle of a barely comprehensible plea for mercy, but bounced back and shot an almost convincing grin to the camera. "Can't say our interns don't earn their keep, right folks? He'll be fine, don't worry. Anyways!" She clapped her hands together, urging the technician to move the stage light onto the next figure, a woman fidgeting in her seat with a scarecrow to her side mimicking her movements.

"Our next contender is Hina Merrel; adopted member of the Merrel family, hard worker, visionary botanist, and remarkable for her... 'unique' sense of style." The woman took a deep breath and stood, bowing lightly to Louise and the camera. "Do you have anything you'd like to say to the millions of folks at home?"

Like that, Hina froze like a deer in the headlights. "I-I- millions? Um, could I have a moment to-" She stood up straight, turning her side to the camera. A small bit of thread glinted under her hair as her outfit began to billow dramatically. "Ahem. Please don't hesitate to visit Merrel farms for your produce and botany needs. We're happy to help."

Louise chuckled. "Well now. I always appreciate people who know how to get to the point. Eventually." As the embarrassed farmer sat back down, Louise strolled along with the spotlight to the shortest figure present, a girl with green hair. "Next up is Wriggle Nightbug, who I'm told is responsible for a news delivery service with the help of her... friends." The hostess paused as a fly whizzed by her head (and her microphone, causing feedback noise), resisting the urge to swat it. "Any experiences you'd like to share with us about that?"

Wriggle just looked at her confused. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"...come again?"

The shorter girl shook her head and waved her off. "I'm a firefly youkai. We tend not to retain unneeded or worthless information. You'd have a better idea about that than I would."

"Huh. Kinda wish I could forget some of the things I see now and then. Still! I hope this meeting was as memorable for you as it was for me. It's been a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Nightbug."

"Same, Ms... um." Wriggle tilted her head. "Who are you again?"

Louise's lips tightened as some of the others on stage snickered. She ignored them and took strides towards her next subject with confidence. "So! Next we have skekUng, the Garthim Master. Not quite sure what a Garthim is, but I haven't even met'em, so-"

A rumbling hiss from one of the beetle-like creatures next to the contestant as it stood to intercept her gave Louise pause. The vulture-like creature stared her down. "No, no. Finish your sentence. The audience is waiting." Without breaking eye contact, he stuffed a fistful of worms into his beak and began to chew. The monstrosity of a creature loomed over her, and she swore it'd be cracking its knuckles if it had any.

"...so I'm sure he's a shining example of what we all should aspire to be." Louise coughed, and continued right past the skekSis, the spotlight lingering for a moment before the technician caught up with her. She ignored the sudden squabbling behind her and following roars and flashes of light to address the next competitor. A young woman with blonde pigtails sat with one hand neatly folded in her lap, the other setting down her now empty tea cup. She turned her head from the chaos ensuing off to the side to Louise, concern changing to slight, polite discomfort as she noticed the host's non-reaction. "Everyone give it up for Mami Tomoe!" The girl daintily waved a hand to the studio audience.

"Happy to be here, Louise."

Louise perked up, flashing her signature smile. "Happy to have you here! Could you tell us a little about what you do?"

"I suppose that's fine." Mami agreed after some thought. "I'm a magical girl."

"Really?" Louise's grin widened. "Sounds like a wonderful job."

"It's my responsibility to hunt monsters called 'witches' that feed on people's life force and will to live. To do that, I follow them into their barrier, a place where reality is twisted to the witch's whims, and fight them to the death. It's a dangerous job, but it's very important."

"...ah." Louise's expression faltered, as she looked Mami over. "Erm. How, uh, how ol-" She cleared her throat and shook off the concern. "Well! I certainly feel safer knowing someone like you is looking out for everyone. Just give me a heads up if ever you need a hand getting ahead of things."

Her expression turned terse and she held a hand up to her earpiece. "Oh, excuse me for just a second, if you would." She turned, lowering her voice enough that her mic barely caught it. "Yeah? What's wrong with-..." Her expression slipped, and the color drained from her face top to bottom. "Oh... oh." She spared Mami a nervous glance, who fixed her with a confused and concerned one in turn. "R-right. Sorry about that folks. We're gonna have to move on to the next introduction now."

"Oh, okay. If you want to talk after this-" Mami's voice cut off as the spotlight moved away from her and her mic was disconnected. Sparing one more worried look after Louise, the girl stood, drew her weapon, and began making her way over toward the increasing sounds of violence from her last two interview-ees.

Louise clapped her hands against her cheeks and shook her head, putting her practiced facade back on. With a spring in her step, she approached a man with a canine-like companion. She stopped in her tracks as it raised its hackles at her, only to be soothed by the man setting his hand on its back and nodding to signal her over. "We're truly blessed to receive not just one, but two of out major financiers today. The one and only Rufus Shinra joins us here today as both a competitor for his own betterment, and as a representative of his company's new direction."

The blonde man nodded, taking on a practiced tone Louise recognized very well. "You're well-informed. As much as I have high hopes for myself on a personal level, I also wish to show the world that Shinra will continue to lead in every field imaginable. We always have and always will pride ourselves on it."

"...apparently including a contest involving nerds making up fake sets for Smash Bros." Louise muttered, careful not to let her mic or Rufus pick up on the comment. "I must say, between your methods and dedication to achieving everything you can, you're certainly one of a kind." She jumped as a low growl caught her attention, Dark Nation glowering at her from where it lay. "Um, is he okay?"

Rufus laughed amicably. "Oh, don't you worry about him." He raised one hand as if to adjust his collar, but Louise didn't miss how his fingers curled around the microphone attached to it. "He only acts up when he feels I'm not being respected. Say, because a certain rabbit decided to get smart with me." Louise flinched, staring into his eyes and seeing how his smile failed to reach them for just a moment. He removed his hand from his collar and continued. "I do hope we can all be friends here."

"Of... of course, sir." Louise nodded shakily. "Truly inspiring words." He made a small gesture with his hand, and Louise knew it was time to move on. That was fine. She'd been rehearsing zingers for the last guy all day anyhow. "And now for one of our most famous participants-"

Louise blinked as no more sound came from her mouth. She raised her hand to her lips, only to find smooth skin. "Mmph?!"

Fog crept up from the ground around the last competitor, who stood with a natural heroic bearing as he spoke to... herself? 'Louise eagerly nodded her head in rapt attention as Mysterio spoke. "-to show the world that anyone can be a hero if they only try. To save lives is its own reward, but that's what I hope people will take away from word of my exploits, if anything."

'Louise' nodded. "Words to live by. I know this is a bit much to ask, but before we wrap this up, could you do a quick trick for the kids at home?"

The hostess' eyes narrowed to a dangerous glint, steam shooting out of her ears. Stuffing a hand into her thigh pouch, she pulled out chap stick, drawing a pair of makeshift 'lips' onto her face and smacking them once, twice, and with a 'pop' her mouth returned. As the hero removed his helmet to the amazement of the crowd, she saw her chance.

Before he knew it, Mysterio teetered forward from the sudden weight and force placed on his 'neck'. A fishbowl, complete with plastic castle and baffled looking goldfish, stared at the crowd as the real Louise reappeared. "How's that for a trick? Now that that's all done, let's wrap things up." She took two strides away from the crowd pleaser as she noticed how still he was; she didn't want to be in the blast radius for any more shenanigans, including her own.

"I've introduced all ten remaining competitors for the 1st place prize, and the last of the votes have been tallied!" Pulling an envelope from her sleeve, Louise mercilessly tore it to shreds to get at the letter inside. Her eyes scanned up and down the paper, nodding to herself. "The winner is-"

"Excuse me."

Louise stopped, casting a look back at Hina. "Yes? We're kind of in the middle of something."

"You said there were 'ten' contestants. You've only introduced nine of us."

"Now, now, now. Clearly she's counting my boy, Lance. He certainly possesses the talents and bearing to stand among us here today-"

A harsh laugh cut him off, skekUng swatting Wriggle aside and smacking one of Mami's rifles up, the shot going clear over his head. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"Are you implying something about my son?" Ernest's disposition immediately shifted as he glared at the skekSis.

"If you all would just-" Louise began, only to look to her now empty hand. "What?" Her head swiveled back and forth, eventually settling on the card in an armored hand. "Hey!"

"Pardon me. But I believed it would be to our benefit to announce the winner quickly before this situation could degrade any further. That being said, could you kindly explain to me why this card is blank?"

The fighting stopped, ten sets of suspicious eyes (counting the goldfish that had its home set safely to the side) staring at her. Louise scowled and brushed herself off. "If you'll return to your seats, I'll happily tell you."

A few uncomfortably long stared were shared between those present, the contestants returning to their marked positions. Louise's grin showed some teeth. "Thank you for your cooperation. Now. The reason why that card is blank, is because I'm actually going to announce the winner in classic Fortune's Favored! style: with a few fireworks and plenty of confetti."

"Ho ho! How wonderfully festive." Ernest nodded in understanding. A few of the group looked placated, but Rufus frowned in thought.

"Now then, let's begin." Louise reached into her sleeve again, pulling out a handle attached to a stick. Her real smile asserted itself, on display for all to see. Amongst the confused and troubled frowns, Rufus' eyes widened, the only one who had researched enough to realize what was going on. He shot to his feet as Louise sweetly sing-songed to the camera. "Too late~"

'Click!' went the detonator, and the room was filled with smoke, explosions, confetti and panicked yelling, framing Louise and blocking the other competitors from sight. The chairs- and an empty space near Mysterio, oddly enough- were the centers of each burst of sparks and smog, and Louise's signature gold tinted the room from the rockets' glow. She took a moment to admire her handiwork before glancing back at the camera. "Hey, you can't say I didn't introduce all ten competitors. I even introduced myself first!" With a confident stride, she slunk into the smoke, then returned with a trophy in hand. "Since our other entrants will be sleeping off the victory celebration in the hospital for a few days, it seems like I win by default, Fortune Fans! Bit of an anti-climax, but that's just how it goes someti-"

'THUNK'

Louise froze as a very large blade sunk into the ground at her feet, a clawed hand gripping its hilt. skekUng effortlessly pried the blade from the floor, and lifted it to her neck. As the smoke cleared, the rest of the competitors stood, covered in soot and with small embers clinging to their clothes. Their attention was focused solely on Louise, as were their assorted weapons.

"...ah. It, uh, appears I didn't use quite enough gunpowder." Louise cleared her throat. "Now, to be fair, I didn't play favorites here; everyone got the same amount of explosive ordinance everyone else did. And really, you're all doing alright because I didn't want to risk using too much and hurting you permanently. You should be thanking-"

A gunshot rang out, and a small puff of smoke rose from the now-parted hair atop her head. She stiffly turned to look at Rufus, whose weapon was still smoldering. "You're not buying that. Right. Fair enough."

"...everyone?" Hina blinked, rage momentarily forgotten. The question drew a few glances toward her, but the feel of skekUng's blade to her throat quashed any ideas of taking the opportunity to run.

"Y-yeah, everyone."

"Does that include-"

There was a low rumble, and the lights began to flicker. Soon the studio began to shake, and a small stage light fell to the ground with a crash, breaking the stare down.

"...oh. I see why you were asking now." Louise grew still, beads of sweat dotting her brow. "Ladies and gentlemen, we might want to take this disagreement elsewhere. Quickly."

"Louise." Ernest rose to his feet, one arm holding up his nervous wreck of a son, as he stared at her sternly. "What. Did. You. Do."

"Well, it wasn't really me so much as our intern. To be honest, I didn't think he had had time to pull it off-" Any attempt to finish that sentence was cut short as the back wall of the studio exploded open, a screeching maw of teeth and shadow visible through it, a panicked looking intern straining to keep it from closing in on himself.

"That's all the time we have today folks!" Louise saw her opportunity and spun toward the exit running with her prize tucked under her arm. Another hole opened in the wall to reveal the Primordial Darkness' eye, dotted with what could only be described as 'confetti shrapnel' as it let out another unholy screech. Some of the group turned to face it, standing their ground, while others fled after Louise. "Tune in next Make Your Move! The winner and all placements are down below!"

The MYM23 Top 42

1) "Lucky" Louise by UserShadow7989
2) The Primordial Darkness by ForwardArrow
3) Hina Merrel by UserShadow7989
4) Rufus Shinra by FrozenRoy
5) Mysterio by BKupa666
6) skekUng, the Garthim Master by Smash Daddy
7) Mami Tomoe by Slavic
8) Pennywise the Dancing Clown by Katapultar
9) Ernest Amano by Smash Daddy
10) Wriggle Nightbug by UserShadow7989
11) Dragonmaid Chame by Katapultar
12) Shou Toramaru by FrozenRoy
13) Amadeus Wolfgeist by BKupa666
14) Jeanne d'Arc (Alter) by Katapultar
15) Hotaru Futaba by Katapultar
16) Il Blud by Smash Daddy
17) Cap'n Cuttlefish by WeirdChillFever
18) Sekuna by ForwardArrow
19) Ochako Uraraka by Katapultar
20) skekMal, the Hunter by BKupa666
21) Ayesha Altugle by Katapultar
22) Ditto by Almand
23) Bleak by UserShadow7989
24) Tomoyo Kanzaki by Katapultar
25) Cyclohm by bubbyboytoo
26) Gnasty Gnorc by Slavic
27) Fierce Pork Trooper by Reigaheres
28) Polterkitty by bubbyboytoo
29) Daisy by WeirdChillFever
30) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger by Almand
31) Prae Aerius by Professor Lexicovermis and Jamietheaurauser
32) Kiyohime by Katapultar
33) Robobot Armor by bubbyboytoo
34) Cooking Mama by Almand
35) The Chosen Undead by GolisoPower
36) Captain Qwark by Bionichute
37) Phoenix by Rychu
38) Broly by Rychu
39) Judgement by GolisoPower
40) Giovanni Potage by plague126
41) Ganon by Chase
42) Carrot by Bionichute​
 
Last edited:

BKupa666

Barnacled Boss
Moderator
Joined
Aug 12, 2008
Messages
7,788
Location
Toxic Tower
Another contest in the books, and for better or worse, certainly one to remember. Much digital ink has been spilled over the high-water mark MYM22 established last year, and though consensus appears to be that MYM23 represented a step down in terms of overall quality, this wasn't a contest to sell short by any stretch. Pound for pound, last contest's sets might have the edge but I'd wager, for many among us, MYM23 saw climbs to higher highs, or at least admirable near-misses for others at clearing what have become impossibly high bars over the years.

Louise as a winning moveset speaks for herself, what with across-the-board super votes and that sort of winner's sheen that's readily apparent for a select few sets, your Xehanorts, Ribby & Croakses, and what have you. From a narrative perspective, I really like how both Louise and Hina stans fanned out into their own camps, based on the sets' individual high points, while still largely recognizing both as cream of the crop. I can say the upper echelon status of both was never in doubt on my end, even though I personally was more enamored with Hina as an overall playground package. UserShadow's win has been a long time coming, and with the level of effort expended to flesh out not just Louise's moveset but an entire canon of source material from which to pull for it, I have to imagine, from your perspective, your first couldn't have happened with a more satisfying contender.

Some more passing thoughts...it's a testament to FA's strength as a setmaker that he was able to knock together a set as refreshing as Primordial Darkness with (what I seem to recall was) a fraction of the effort that went into Xehanort and yet still walk away with the runner-up medal. I'm not sure how FRoy or Smady personally would rank their best this contest vs. last, but from where I'm sitting, your MYM23 works are more than worthy additions to your overall setmaker canons. The collective second wind late in the contest with skekUng, Il Blud and Shou certainly brought us to a close on a high note. Perhaps most impressive to me was Katapultar's tour de force, with seven conceptually diverse sets ranging from at least solidly good to my favorite of the contest. Like a certain animated egotistical food critic, I can't wait to see how undeniable heavy-hitters like Slavic and WCF "surprise me" in MYM24. bubby and Almand's ongoing up-and-comingness, most clearly with Polterkitty and Ditto, ought not to be overshadowed either. And I had a blast reading the myriad contributions from Goliso, dilliam, Reigaheres and Rychu — all deserve accolades for ultimately making the thread that much, mmmm, richer.

On the whole, I walk away from MYM23 satisfied with the level to which I seized on the chance to get experimental and spread my figurative wings, after planting a foothold in modern MYM in 22. skekMal represented an opportunity to drill down on a melee-focused character, an aspect I still found myself working out how to approach at the time, while still weaving in more unorthodox options, like the platform clinging and remote net grab. He's got the most rough edges in terms of my MYM23 output but if nothing else, I was happy Hunter got to become the jumping-off point for me to (successfully) badger Smady into pushing Dark Crystal over the finish line into that sweet, sweet series status - we did it indeed! When Luigi's Mansion 3 dropped late into MYM22, I knew I wanted to stake a claim to a Wolfgeist set early in my own playthrough, and I'm quite glad I did in hindsight. He was a committal effort, for sure, after chat inspiration led me to meld his much-praised piano and Specter's Symphony mechanics. To the extent aspects could have been fleshed out more, I'll chalk up to me stepping outside my comfort zone to focus on the realm of combos, which as a devoted K. Rool main, is very much -not- a case of me writing what I know. How extensively I try to replicate something like that in the future remains to be seen, but on the flipside, I can say Wolfgeist is likely to serve as a personal litmus test for how well I'm able to incorporate character charm and bonkers animations into future sets.

Lastly, onto the fishbowl head himself. I don't believe I've ever worked harder to capture a character's essence, or been personally more fulfilled with a final moveset than I am with Mysterio as of this writing. On some level, I knew that I would eventually do the character after Vulture took off and Far From Home spotlighted him in all his illusionary glory. I initially had no set inspiration but never gave up on snowballing ideas around in my mind, inspired in part by Khold's encouragement in chat. Early musings ran the gamut from Mysterio having a Hero-esque drop box of illusion effects to the real Quentin Beck screwing around in the background with drones to project a fighting hologram around. In the end, I settled on a realistic duplicate and tricks like temporary fake damage or KO effects that would by design shatter the fourth wall, not just messing with Mysterio's immediate opponent but the player controlling them, too. "Fast and loose" is one way you could describe my approach; fundamentally, there were forks in the writing road where I could've gone with simpler concepts than I did, and at virtually every turn, I decided otherwise (Down Special's mega-Mysterios are the biggest result of this). I'd be lying if I said I weren't disheartened by Mysterio narrowly falling short of a podium finish, but I truly have been uplifted by all the thoughtful appreciation for what the set tried to accomplish, difficult to imagine or otherwise. Your kind words empower me to keep my sights on the horizon for what kind of crazy concepts I could possibly cobble together next.

In closing, it goes without saying that MYM23 saw periods of tumultuousness — in our community and the world at large — that left no participant untouched, and some reeling more than others. That folks delivered as robust a contest as MYM23 in the middle of a global pandemic is absolutely nothing to sneeze at. The sense of optimism over MYM24 as a fresh start is palpable, and I can't wait to see how that manifests from each and every one of you. MYM IS DEAD!!!
 

GolisoPower

Smash Master
Joined
Sep 17, 2017
Messages
4,316
Man...35th place. I think that has to be the first time I've got a set on a Top 50 list at all. It feels exhilarating.

Well, lemme just say, that the contest was a very...harrowing experience, MYM, and non-MYM alike. From a big quarantine to drama inside and out, no doubt we were a little low on motivation thanks to 2020. But honestly, it surprising that we managed to pull through with the amount of sets here..

From the creative imaginative beasts like Kupa and Katapultar to even new creators in the form of Dilliam and Torgo, the number of people stopping by here is nothing short of diverse and competitive, and I'm looking forward to great things for the future. There was absolute truckloads to read through and I can't be any happier to read them all.

And I also want to say thank you to the people here for making me rethink how to approach all this. A few contests ago, I was some infrequent who only had two sets to his name, but now I'm 14 strong and looking for more. You guys've given me feedback that has given me the insight for what is needed for a moveset. To everyone who stuck around, I thank you all.

And I wish you good luck because this 35th placing has given me more motivation to do better. MYM 24 is gonna be strong for all of us, I just know it.
 

Katapultar

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
1,251
Location
Australia
Regardless of my placings, I’d say that MYM23 was hands-down my best contest ever. I succeeded in exactly what I set out to do: make a bunch of consistently good sets for characters I genuinely like (Kiyohime falls shorter in character-I-like department compared to everyone else, but she’s still a fine addition) to fill up my moveset resume. It’s my only contest apart from MYM20 where I felt proud/good about every set I made. Plus I broke my record for the most sets to place on a Top 50 in one contest, and this time none of them missed out! I have a weird complex about “disowning” sets that don’t make the Top 50 (or at least not including them in my imaginary MYM Katverse Story Mode), wanting to be careful after Asagao and Ibaraki-Douji.

There was a little talk in how some of my sets were “underrated” this contest. That can’t be helped, it was such a competitive contest and all and all I am happy with the results. Since MYM21, there’s been a trend of me posting sets that are really liked by some people (Himiko, Kunai to name a few), but less so or are just outclassed for other people. That just means I’ve got room for improvement as a setmaker - I’m not as dedicated to editing as other setmakers (there’s a reason PD, skekUng, Rufus and Mysterio placed so high), which seems to be a must these days if you’re feeling really competitive. I prefer to set and forgot my sets and use the time to work on something else, if possible. Nonetheless, I think I prefer making lots of sets, and wouldn’t trade my performance this contest for anyone else’s.

The critique one receives in a contest can bring valuable lessons. MYM20 was a lesson in getting more mileage out of a character’s stats and applications for melee attacks (learned from Doomfist, applied to MYM20 sets). MYM21 brought about the importance of movement during battle (instead of camping around stationary traps ala Hidan/Rosemary) and talking more in setmaking.

Then MYM22 was about cutting down on excessive wording and playstyle/attacks, most notably with Parla and Nasary and Ibaraki-Douji to some degree. That was some tough love, particularly from FA, but the lesson absolutely sunk in and influenced the length of my MYM23 sets. I also started reading again last contest, which was honestly a huge help as I knew it was okay to make simple attacks or have the old kind of MYM fun with trap inputs ala skekSkil to name an immediate example. Needless to say, I’d say these lessons absolutely paid off.

I don’t think MYM23 came with the same big lessons as MYM22, but that’s not to say there weren’t any. Some readers wanted more from certain sets or felt some moves were too simple. B-But I thought you all wanted shorter sets! Nah, but seriously, this feels like a natural evolution: now that I’ve condensed my writing style to a comfortable degree, it feels like MYM is telling me “you can make bigger sets!”, in a way that’d probably be horrible 40k slogs if I did them 1-2 contests ago. It also feels like I should get more liberal in my design choices or tackle characters with more set potential, as characters like Hotaru, Tomoyo and Ochako were slightly inhibited by their limited potential/adherence to source material. On the other hand, Pennywise was rather fun to work on.








I have a confession to make. Around in the middle half of MYM23’s set reading/voting period, I fell into a dark mindset where I got too caught up in the competitive aspect of MYM. Constantly looking at rankings as they were updated, comparing your sets to theirs, feeling a little jealous at their success, eyeing the rankings in hopes that your set will place higher than theirs. I felt it in MYM22 too (and previous MYMs, I’m sure).

It’s the kind of toxic mindset that creates an isolating Me vs Them mentality. Makes me think the only valuable sets are the really competitive ones and that’s all I should do. I knew it was bad and that I shouldn’t feel that way, had to keep telling myself that results don’t matter that much and that the success others get is well-warranted. The mindset was such that I questioned whether it was worth going through at the end of each MYM just for the Top 50 at the end. I actually considered the idea of just not posting sets in MYM for competitive purposes (but still make sets, that way maybe I could avoid falling into that same mindset again, but I changed my mind and felt much better later on, some time when Smady, Froy and Slavic set comments started flooding in.

I don’t know how things will go next contest, but I do know it always helps to talk to people. Maybe next time I can just talk to another setmaker about it, hopefully nip the mentality in the bud. I guess it’s easy to get fixated on results during the reading/voting period, it is a tense 1-2 month wait after all. But I do remember how I felt when typing up my more inspired sets this contest, and can say that creating sets is such a joy and that’s arguably the best part about MYM.

The next step for MYM24? Honestly, I’d say I’d be happy with a similar performance to this contest, but it could be fun to make a more ambitious set. Ayesha I felt was my most ambitious sets this contest, and while she wasn’t as good as she could have been I thought she was a step in the right direction. Her balance concerns brought up were a clear note to start previewing sets to pick out balance issues, as the likes of Mami, Lucky Louise and Hina (and Primordial Darkness, which I heard Froy previewed in private) were hugely successful. It would probably help if the character was hype, otherwise the preview might get ignored, but then I should also strive to check out as many previews as possible over the course of MYM24. That way we can boost set productivity, plus it’s great for conceiving set ideas!




Hotaru Futaba: Huh, she placed higher than I expected! (was expecting 19-20th/outside Top 20) My first FG outing was quite the involved process, a set I would define as following her source material as closely as possible while still trying to be an interesting set. Maybe her design choices weren’t perfect, part of me thinks her Specials and moveset didn’t take advantage of her mechanics as well as they could have, and her writing is a bit superfluous in some areas. TOP aside, I think a moveset with Specials that get huge mileage from being regular canceled would be a lot of fun, probably the kind of thing I’d have to make an OC for. Performance-wise, I see FG sets as being inherently less popular and disadvantaged, not quite worth the time one invests in them, but I just liked Hotaru that much as a character like Smady really liked Hugo. If I did another FG set, it would be a more relaxed, command input-free approach reminiscent to Alex or FA’s scrapped Susanoo set, taking a more liberal MYM approach to the character. That, or a SF-style set with a MYM’ian twist, like say Magaki but his portals linger in a way they don’t in his source material. I’m sure MYM would be more than accepting of that.

Tomoyo Kanzaki: My melee take on Nox, though I can’t help but wonder whether some of Nox’s appeal was in the novelty of full-fledged time stop being brought back after a long time. I enjoyed making this character, but as noted by others her approach to time stop was more conservative than the past projectile-spamming villains who did it in the past. Unfortunately, Tomoyo just did not have the potential to make full use of time stop, inhibiting just how good her set could have been. Maybe she could have had the other club members as assists ala Hauskee; that way she’d have no shortage of proper projectiles and could manage her assists via time stop, though she is not exactly the leader of the group in her series.

Like Hotaru, Tomoyo seems to have been inhibited by thinking “inside the box”: whereas Hotaru I insisted on her being as faithful to her game as possible, Tomoyo could have had more potential with assists. This brings to mind something Smady said: comparing skekUng’s buffed attacks to a Hugo with more set potential. Nonetheless, a less restrained time stop set would be fun to explore, and even just typing this summary on Tomoyo made me realise that taking a more liberal approach on characters and movesetting just might be one of the lessons I need to take from this contest.

Pennywise: I was actually expecting Pennywise to place 9th-11th, so getting 8th was a pleasant surprise and fills in a Top 10 placing I haven’t gotten before. First Gengar, now Mysterio? The poor clown just can’t catch a break in his epic mindgame battles of MYM.

While some people enjoyed the NSpec/SSpec mindgame/sound manipulation aspect of Pennywise, I almost wonder whether he was “held back” by them (some setmakers didn’t super embrace them, that makes sense and I wasn’t expecting Pennywise to do so well because of them). That is, I quite enjoyed coming up with the fridge Down Special and stuff like the Jab, N-air, Smashes and D-throw, I hadn’t gone all-out in nuttier, high-potential hard interaction concepts in a while. These were largely influenced by Smady and Kupa’s sets and styles from MYM22. I wonder how Pennywise or a similar set would have turned out if I ignored the mindgames and just went for the construct/interactions? If I could find the right crazy high potential character, I’d love to put this to the test.

Ochako Uraraka: Was not expecting her to place in the Top 20 or above Ayesha. It’s funny how the current “big” three My Hero Academia sets are all 9 spots apart from each other (Himiko 10th, Ochako 19th, Bakugo 28th). Does that mean the next MHA sets will place 37th and… 1st?

Perhaps my favourite MHA character, and favourite main heroine of any Jump franchise - she’s upbeat, has a refreshing energy to her and has romantic implications going on with Deku. Finish a set for him, and she and Himiko will be very happy campers.

I’m decently happy with Ochako’s moveset and her take on debris, but Slavic’s comment of wanting more out of stuff like U-Smash makes me wonder whether I could have done better. Plus Froy’s comment that she should have had a float. In that sense, Ochako reminds me of Tomoyo in not realising her concepts’ full potential, except Ochako could have pulled it off. This almost makes me want to make an OC or another character who re-uses “what if?” Ochako concepts, like having a float and using magic to manipulate debris in whatever shape you like, even merge debris into boulders. First character that comes to mind is like, Aussa the Earth Charmer, but the idea might be too over-the-top for her. How about another classic set remake? How about Lizard remake?

Jeanne D’Arc Alter: Jalter is a prime example of just how effective set-reading can be for inspiration. Jalter was inspired by me reading The Primordial Darkness - so much so that I started her WHILE I was still reading that set! (in the middle of PD’s D-Smash) I had Jalter’s invincibility concept in mind for a while, was originally going to use it on Fuhrer from Persona 2 before I knew about Jalter, but while reading PD something just clicked with me. Ideas get thrown around a lot; I like to think that we stockpile them in our heads and they come in handy at the right time.

I always thought FA or Froy would get to her first, even though Froy had her at 5th place on his 20 most wanted characters for me, but she’s an absolutely welcome addition to the Katverse as a nemesis for the Dragonmaids. Her set was so inspired that I got her finished within 5 days, including material that has since been removed (old time bomb B-throw) and a scrapped concept to summon Fafnir on the Neutral Special before he was moved to the Final Smash. That was somewhat inspired by Froy saying he had the idea to make Fafnir an assist on Jalter, while also making her an offensive character.

I’m fond of Jalter for her minions, but also just being an extreme character with high mobility and slow, satisfying attacks like her F-Smash. Not a type of character I do a LOT of, or at least in MYM23 as I didn’t make any speedy ninjas this contest. The wyvern summon was basically my take on implementing balanced minions, a popular concept I am particularly anal about (I am not a fan of minions that can casually block enemy projectiles, for instance).

The main lessons from Jalter came from some moves being simple (like F-throw) or questionable balance, the latter something even Primordial Darkness got hit with from a few comments. Extreme characters tend to get that, but they can have really fun pay-off.

An earlier criticism primarily came from Nat in many moves being too gimmicky, some of which have been removed like U-tilt’s reflector, F-throw and F-air. Oddly enough, these were added for extra “creativity” in moves I thought might have been too generic, despite Jalter still having a few moves that could be considered such. Had I not added this removed stuff, it’s possible that I could have finished Jalter in 4 days instead of 5! Now that’s an optimistic thought.

Finally, Jalter feels like the evolution to Ibaraki who didn’t do so well (both use an “NP” meter). I definitely prefer it this way, as my opinion on Ibaraki as a character has lowered since while Jalter is among my favourite F/GO Servants.

Also, it’s funny that she got the same 14th placing as another dark and edgy dragon girl from a few contents back, Ziz.

Ayesha Altugle: Inspired by Steve’s presentation video, the bulk of Ayesha was written in 5 days before I took some time off, then came back and spent an entire day finishing the Neutral and Side Special before posting her. Despite being 20k and my most ambitious set this contest with some crazy ideas, I knew Ayesha wasn’t going to be a frontrunner, but I would be darned if I let such an inspired piece of work go to waste. I had always wanted to make a set for my favourite Atelier protagonist from my favourite Atelier game, but I never knew how to.

Fun fact: Diego was made under inspired conditions too, in the “zone” where one gets fully absorbed in their setmaking. I’m sure many of you have had a similar experience. Diego was actually written before Ayesha, but I went off of him for too long and lost confidence in his Specials. The next time that happens, I should probably put the set in the preview thread, no?

Ayesha isn’t as good as she could have been - balance concerns on items and a bloated Neutral Special (nearly 80k, my longest move ever!), the latter I was keenly aware of during set production but felt obligated to put nearly every attack item she uses in-game in the set (only scent bag is missing). I also thought Up Special could have done more for the set, and Ayesha focusing on items in her set meant she didn’t have THAT strong of a base to focus on melee, especially when most of the items were one-use stuff like bombs.

Ayesha might not have placed as high as I’d like, but honestly? Taking all her comments in, her ambition felt like a step in the right direction for my future setmaking. Most if not ALL my sets this contest had a common complaint about either having moves that were “too simple” or wanting more from their base concepts, a sign that I could afford to be more ambitious. After compacting my writing style over MYM23, this feels like the next logical step for my setmaking, providing I can find a fun and wholesome character to commit to. Ayesha is also the reason why I decided that putting my more ambitious projects up for preview in the future would be a good idea, as sets like Hina, Lucky Louise and Mami did that and were hugely successful. Of course, I need to remind myself that placing and popularity aren’t everything - rather, it’s the fulfillment of writing sets and the growth as one’s style evolves.

Far from a setback, Atelier/item sets are definitely something I’d love to do more of - there are no shortage of alchemists in the franchise, each with their own unique moves, gameplay mechanics and items (to some degree) to offer. Making the item-making Special shorter and spreading out excess items onto the non-Specials is definitely something I’ll do, and could even make for some fun melee attacks. US even threw out the absolutely brilliant idea of a Lydie and Suelle tag team set, where one alchemist focuses on attack items and the other focuses on healing items.

Another funny placing, Ayesha got the same placing as her fellow alchemist Shallotte! Mimics Jalter getting the same placing as Ziz from said MYM20, though Pennywise fell short 5 places from matching Ghostface. Just you wait, I’ll get the Atelier series into the Top 20 soon enough.

Dragonmaid Chame: After Nasary and Parla, I decided that my next Dragonmaid set would aim for their same level of characterisation but without their superfluous wordiness, just meant to be a fun time. At first I thought Chame was the “boring” Dragonmaid with no personality, but then I looked closer at her artwork and noticed that she was blushing. Then I knew she would be the shy maid, a unique personality type that could lend itself to some fun characterisation.

It took a while to fine-tune Chame’s cleaning mechanic, and I had to rewrite all of her Specials, but in time I had a product that I was happy with. Fun fact: F-Smash was one of the first moves I came up with. Regardless of the reception I was expecting, I loved Chame for the characterisation, writing style, extras and simple concept leading to fun ideas that I got out of a mere 10k product, pretty much my ideal type of “shorter” set. Adjusting a set’s writing style (and attack names, to some extent) is something I’ve been experimenting with recently to display more characterisation beyond attack animations and character descriptions; it’s a technique I’d love to use in an OC, though it’s much easier to apply on characters with strong or distinct personalities. Might be hard to write a set for Mario that reads like it was written by Mario.

I was only expecting Chame to be on Tomoyo and Ochako’s level (good but not great), but she turned out to have some big fans like Froy, Slavic, US and IQ. Chame getting 4 Super Votes and almost breaking into the top 10 was insane. That reception was definitely uplifting, that one can write a shorter set in a 20-30k world and it can still be loved. Chame feels like a step in the right direction for future setmaking: she feels like one of two branches I can take for setmaking, shorter sets compared to more ambitious takes like Ayesha.

As the sequel to the MYM22 Dragonmaid movement, it feels fitting that her compact style best represents the evolution of Nasary and Parla’s superfluous wording. I just love that. It probably helped that Chame doesn’t have a dragon form as of writing this, so I didn’t get distracted by or feel the need to implement any dragon form into her set. Froy and Slavic mentioning that Chame is more focused on her maid job (cleaning) was a big Aha thing I never noticed either, I’m glad she worked out that way!

Kiyohime: Not much to say here, she accomplished what I set her out to be: filler for the Top 50 that wasn’t too competitive. Also like getting the 32nd place, not gotten that before. Getting a 3rd Fate set is nice too, and hey, maybe her tether mechanics could inspire something? Not a level of quality I want to make again in the future, if I can spend my time working on something better.





UserShadow: Congratulations for your first and well-deserved win! How fitting it should be for an OC from a brand new universe, you’re practically the OC guy in MYM, and a rabbit character at that! (you already have Rime Marz and Bunny the Honeywhite) This contest was definitely a step up for you animation and presentation-wise. Of course, I am definitely looking forward to seeing more Yu-Gi-Oh! and Witchverse works from you.

Kupa: It’s great to see a continuation of Luigi’s Mansion and two franchises you picked up in MYM22. Mysterio is the pinnacle of mindgame sets at the moment, a fit for your current crowning set as you tend to focus on and exploit Smash gameplay mechanics. I quite enjoyed all of your sets this contest, particularly the gradual improvement of your melee. And you seem to have quite the set waiting for us next contest!

ForwardArrow: You seem to be establishing a trend of darkness-based final bosses and female OCs from your own OC universes. By the sounds of it you’ve gotten “back” into setmaking, would be very fun to see you finish at least one of your graveyard projects like Cell or Ennel. Seriously dude, you’re a far better setmaker than your confidence or initial assumptions on your sets might imply.

Slavic: This was quite a breakthrough contest for you! Mami got Madoka in the Top 10, and even Gnorc was fun and got Spyro in the Top 50. If your fantastic endgame comment contribution and set discussion/previews have anything to say, you seem to have more in store for MYM24.

Smash Daddy: Great contest with 3 fun franchises, always fun to see a return to AA and you’ve finally dipped your toes in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. Love the energy that goes into your set writing. Playing all those old yugioh games and getting introduced to monsters like Ojama King and Kozaky, MYM24 is likely to be a very Yu-Gi-Oh! MYM.

FrozenRoy: You might not have posted as many sets as you’d have liked, but this was still an excellent contest for you as you got out two top-tier sets. Rufus is continuing the trend of handsome bad guy gunners, might be a little while before I better associate you with cute danmaku girls. US is tough competition, after all. Then again, your tastes are pretty varied. Perhaps you’ll return to turbo form next contest, even if you post that Blue Bowser set that’s sitting around in the previews.

Almand: You could say this is your first real contest, and what a great one it’s been! I quite enjoyed all of your sets, definitely a unique style and Ditto was quite the wild card this contest. If you can make your writing more concise and bring your attacks together to contribute to the playstyle (all your sets had fun base concepts), you’ll definitely become a fantastic setmaker.

WCF: You’re an ambitious guy, but this was still a strong contest for you. Cuttlefish was a solid set that had further potential imo, will be fascinating to see how far you go in MYM24 as you seem to have big plans for Kohga. This contest’s Top 6 emphasized the importance of editing, something you’re very dedicated to - I’m sure you’ll go far.

Nat: I’m not sure if you’re reading this or looking at the Top 50, but I did enjoy your sets and you were a very strong set reader throughout the contest. I believe Plague Knight fell short for others because of a few innocent mistakes (ones I didn’t catch myself), they could have been addressed but MYM tends to comment sets pretty late these days. I for one would welcome you back if you ever decided to do movesetting again. In any case, congratulations on getting on the Top 50!

Goliso: Excellent work posting your 12 sets! That’s very praise-worthy, it shows off your character tastes pretty well. Judgement and Mokou had very fun concepts in their NSpecs, a trend that Magnus will likely continue in MYM24. Chosen Undead was a given, but I’m glad Judgement made the Top 50 too as we get some Helltaker rep.

dilliam: MYM23 was something of a warm-up for you, but like Goliso those sets were made before you got fully into set reading. If your set plans indicate anything, you’ve got some hype character tastes and fun choices in the works - Teridax in particular is looking to be a considerable improvement for you. I’m sure you’ll definitely make the top 50 next time!

Rychu: It’s great to have you back! Phoenix and Broly were pretty good for warm-up entries, I was hoping both of them would get on the Top 50. It’ll be amazing to see how far you go next contest, especially given the stunning leap in quality you have going for Law.



For all the setbacks this contest, it still turned out fantastic. Would be fun to see MYM24 having a more balanced competition, a full Top 50 this time and to wrap up more quickly (maybe; some people might want to do a Halloween, Christmas or Junahu day movement), but we’ll see how things go.
 
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