Make Your Move 24: Moveset Design Contest — Congrats to our Top 50! This contest is officially Dead™, tune in March 10 for our next installment!

[FrozenRoy]

Small Extension to Midnight (PST) of February 17th for Voting!​

TBH we saw some people looking like they might miss some sets or just miss out, so we just added a week to help make sure everyone has time. No plans to change when Make Your Move 25 starts!

Here's an update of all qualified voters.

Katapultar: 71 (Qualified)
GolisoPower: 35 (Qualified)
UserShadow: 31 (Qualified)
Rychu: 18 (Qualified!)
Slavic: 18 (Qualified!)
bubbyboytoo: 17 (Qualified!)
ForwardArrow: 15 (Qualified)
FrozenRoy: 11 (Qualified!)
Torgo the Bear: 10 (Qualified!)
BKupa666: 10 (Qualified!)
Almand: 10 (Qualified!)
Dilliam: 7 (3 to qualify!)
WeirdChillFever: 6 (4 to qualify!)
Khold: 5 (5 to qualify!)
Doc Monocle: 3 (7 to qualify!)
n88: 3 (7 to qualify!)
Junahu: 2 (8 to qualify!)
Smash Daddy: 2 (8 to qualify!)

Currently, we have three votelists already in. Don't be shy about sendin' 'em in!

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Quick Comments to Qualify (mostly lifted from chat, oops)

Niva (by Katapultar)
Initial confusion about who she was and where she came from aside, I really liked this set as it all came together really nicely! First, the halberd is used to its absolute fullest extent with some really vicious and warriorlike attacks, going all in on the animations. This really saves the set time and space having to tell how warrior-like Niva is or trying to convey what her personality is like in other ways, since the moves themselves show and describe it. This made the set and the character come to life, as well as giving Niva an interesting melee game. Definitely a big boon in the writing department.

Another way the set shines in simplicity is the mechanic itself, the icicle. Not to say that the moveset is simple, it has a lot of big brain plays, but the mechanics and intricacies in the set are all a direct result of a single construct and how it functions. Hard interactions between moves are always fun to read in MYM, but sometimes it’s best to take a single thing and let that variable shine through and influence the set by itself. That elegance really shines through your experience as a setmaker and your understanding of the Smash engine.

In the end, It might not have the dazzling power of the frontrunners (hypocritical to compliment the simplicity and then turn around and demand more hard-coded interactions from it, but I guess that’s showbusiness.) but it came together really well. Great job!

KOS-MOS (by Smash Daddy and FrozenRoy)
Similar to Niva, I felt the character really come alive, to the point where I believed she was a DLC character rather than the MYM monstrosities we tend to make. KOS-MOS absolutely stacks on the gimmicks, but for some reason I could see it all being explained in a Sakurai Presents. This is possibly due to a certain amount of moves being lifted from Xenosaga itself and the character being more in the range of dark horse pick than the mostly impossibly fun characters MYM tackles.

Part of it was also due to the attack animations all sounding plausible and fit for a whatever-kind-of-not-a-robot KOS-MOS is. Sometimes I felt the explanations for the animations could’ve used a bit of a shortcut, like by saying it’s X-and-Y’s move but Z, but when you do it’s noticeably clear and helps solidify the understanding of the range and such.

The AP system does what it does and has fun mechanics associated with it, although it’s hard to make a mechanic like this feel truly fresh when meters and resources and the like are such a staple, so it didn‘t always stand out to me as a central mechanic. Luckily, the set has enough other and fresh mechanics to solidify the set beyond resource-expending. The direct connection of the set’s mechanics to Xenosaga gameplay also legitimizes the set and make it extra fun and feel much more complete.

I had some slight issues with the writing at the start of the set, where sometimes sentences weren’t in the logically right place, like some clauses and limiys of moves were placed before the moves were explained. It did add an uncanny and robotic vibe to it, so I‘ll chalk it up to immersion of the character.

W (by ForwardArrow)
Took me a while to get into the set, as the Insult to Injury mechanic didn’t really click with me at first. Probably because I thought hitstun lasted too short to really be a factor, so once I looked into it and learned something new today I looked at the set with fresh eyes. Once I got into it, it was an interesting mechanic that serves her character well and is no doubt a reference to her game. Really liked how the various mines tied into it, even though that took a while to click as well. (Which is not a fault of the set, but very much a great example of some writer principles as to not make every connection five-year-old-proof.)

I did feel myself wanting more and looking more for the Insult to Injury affecting moves uniquely, but on the other hand I could see myself being annoyed at each move having an Insult to Injury version if it didn’t serve a purpose so the balance overall isn’t a problem, although I do think you’re good enough a setter to make consistently fun moves and it could’ve spruced up some portions of the set that are otherwise slightly understated, like the non-Neutral Air aerials.

Overall, it’s never bad to have one wanting more of a set, and you definitely did with W, even if I’m lamenting a version that went all out with the mechanic (that I would have nitpicked in its own right)

 

[n88]

Dixie Kong by BKupa666
This is really ambitious and mostly stays grounded in what Dixie could actually look like, which is an impressive combination. It feels like a real passion project! That said, I did find myself putting off reading this a bit. I think the amount of stuff going on in the first few moves was a little daunting; the Down Special in particular is a monster of a move, but the other specials also have variant uses that compound quickly. You do a good job building up the complexity in a way that reads smoothly, but it's still a lot to digest.

Kiddy and the strategies around syncing and desyncing with him take up most of the headspace needed to read this. It feels like he steals the show at points for that reason. The other tools introduced by Dixie's Specials are comparatively not that thoroughly explored throughout the rest of her set, and despite being pitched as an optional tool that Dixie doesn't entirely need, Kiddy ends up becoming a focal point of the reading experience. It's understandable in that choosing to play with Kiddy would introduce a lot more complexity, of course.

I really respect the commitment to Kiddy having his own almost-full moveset. I wonder if you could have broken him out into his own simplistic set and had him as a 'reading requirement' before getting into Dixie. It'd let you recap certain things he does instead of getting into the nitty-gritty, so Dixie could focus a little more on her own stuff. Hard to say that'd really go down more smoothly though; organizing this much information is always tricky. (And he's not actually a set you're trying to present on its own anyway)

The whole set is super polished, with a lot of care and thought put into attack animations and really showing off a character's potential to the fullest extent possible. Dixie isn't someone I would have thought of as having a lot going on, but you draw quite a bit out of her here.

Stray thoughts:

• "Depending on their timing, a foe can attack Kiddy such that he's in hitstun at this one-second point, and doesn't copy Dixie's move. However, because hitstun alone won't make Kiddy drop a mirror move, ... " - I don't quite follow the start of that second sentence there.
• Down Special might have been a little tidier if the keg-rolling section came in the first part of the move, before getting into the Kiddy-chucking variant of the attack? Still, you manage to segue back into the keg stuff well from the subject of Kiddy throwing his own kegs, so i can't complain too much.
• Dig Up Special. Always favored Dixie in DKC2 for the helicopter hair (natch) so it's cool to see that realized in a fun way, with the momentum being made important and the extra mobility options from keg-bouncing thrown in. The keg dynamics sound fun to play around with in general.
• Grounded Up Special desyncing from Kiddy feels like it wouldn't be super intuitive. The tricks you can set up with that property do sound cool, but the move feels like it has enough utility that you'd conceivably want to use it without doing that.
• Forward Special having the double-tap application but only for Kiddy and the keg also felt unnecessary to me. Probably sound like I'm griping a bit, but I do think it's impressive that, with as much variance as these Specials have, there were really only a couple places where I felt like the set was pushing the limits of what'd be manageable.
• Really dig DAir. I'm a dope who loves stall-then-falls, and the diagonal trajectory coupled with the momentum-influenced speed is a cool take on one.
• Kiddy kicking Dixie around in a desynced FSmash is another place the set felt a little bit hat-on-a-hat. Breaks the usual rules of how Kiddy works on top of that, so it sticks out a bit.
• RIP Chunky Kong
• Didn't Syndrome's Dash Attack also interact with edges like this? Is this a trope I don't know about? I do dig being able to roll jump, so I won't complain.
• I can tell my brain doesn't work because I cannot for the life of me stop reading "Kiddy" as "Kirby".

 

[FrozenRoy]

Irisu Syndrome (Syndrome BKupa666 )

Syndrome's definitely a set that gives me some mixed feelings that ultimately ended positive. The Omnidroid's learning nature is obviously the highlight and how much depth it has as a minion, one of the more complex we've seen in Make Your Move, and on that front I feel like it delivers pretty well. I'd be very interested in sets that pursue this line of thought in the future! I do feel like the Omnidroid is overpowered though, and less in a way where he breaks the game and more that it tilts the playstyle pretty heavily. Take the Omnidroid's first attack for example:

• Comes out on Frame 3, essentially the same as Mario's Jab (Frame 2)
• The move, as I understand it, combos the hits together if the first one hits. This deals 20% damage and kills at 95%, both of which are a fairly strong smash attack range.
• The attack is safe on shield even if the opponent predicts it due to AI behavoir every time, leaving them frame neutral with the minion.
• On top of that, it deals additional bonus damage to shields.
• Being a minion, Syndrome is completely free to act during all of this. It is true that, for example, his grab is laggy, but his 3-frame minion attack puts them in 24 frames of shield stun.
• It has decent range too.
• tldr: Mario's Jab but it deals 20%, kills at 95%, and doesn't need to be attached to the character itself.

Why would you ever want to grab this thing with Side Special to move it when it can just approach people and throw out a Frame 3 middle to middle heavyweight smash attack? This is also on the easiest of the AI patterns for the Omnidroid to use, so it isn't difficult to get it to throw it out. On top of that, it also has an anti-shield command grab that deals 15% damage and knockback akin to Flying Slam on a Frame 8 (roughly the same as Flying Slam's Frame 6 which is definitely not too hard to land) on top of having more range and a huge active frame count that will counter rolls or spot dodges. Obviously the Omnidroid additionally has a lot of power in its other attacks, but these ones stuck out to me as a strong combination of speed and strength.

The set early on tries to suggest doing stuff like hitting your own Omnidroid intentionally to reprogram it's behavoir or using Side Special to fling it around and I just cannot imagine it being correct to try to game an AI that is choosing between all Good+ options at the risk of getting hit by these options for 7 seconds, having to defend against the Frame 3 attack alone when working WITH your Omnidroid is the core of the set is disruptive enough! The latter parts of the set talk about it more as a downside interrupting Syndrome's counters, which feels far more in line with how Syndrome would actually play in my mind, which is sticking as close to the Omnidroid as possible and depending on its behavoir either leading in for it to follow or waiting for it to throw out something like the Frame 3 attack off and getting a big punish or combo off.

This feels added onto by the fact Syndrome has multiple sources of lockdown or stun (Down Throw, NSpec2, Down Aerial), and I am going to bet mashing out of a pitfall in 3 frames to avoid the Omnidroid jab isn't happening. Given they WILL get in chase range, Syndrome's Down Throw -> Omnidroid #1 Attack feels like an exceedingly effective kill confirm. On that note, I do not know why you would bother with any of the interactions that turn the Omnidroid hostile when you can just hit it with a grab to fling it as a 21% damage hitbox that kills at 70% and doesn't turn the Omnidroid hostile.

Up Special was one of my favorite moves in the set I really liked and is an interesting take on the ROB Up Special style, it definitely opens up a lot of air options (although IDK if Syndrome is fully able to take advantage). To be honest though I wasn't totally sold on Side Special and Down Special, both of which felt like great moves kinda stuck in sets that don't fully utilize them, Side Special feels IDEAL for a set all about item manipulation (this is truly a Katapultar move if I ever saw one) and not worth using a lot on the Omnidroid although it does still carve out a niche as a command grab. Down Special is actually pretty cool but the base form feels a bit weak and more importantly Syndrome's set doesn't really feel able to take a lot of advantage of it imo.

I'd say I was actually more impressed with the moves after the grab game and non-USpec/Omnidroid Specials than those moves. The Smash attacks in particular felt chef's kiss (though it took me a few reads to understand Down Smash's hitbox), Up Smash is simple but one of the moves that works best into how he plays into the Omnidroid, Down Smash has some unique targeting that leads to deep / interesting melee, and I looove Forward Smash (some Rufus vibes there?) and the multitude of ways Syndrome can tinker with the explosive, how it can work into his Omnidroid AND how it can backfire on him, it's just overall really good. The standards and whatnot felt aware that Syndrome's power level has gotta take second fiddle to the Omnidroid's and worked that interestingly such as Syndrome's objectively kinda bad grab that has a lot of case value due to the cape effect.

I definitely bounced around on Syndrome a lot (I considered it lower for a good chunk of it, then it swooped up) but it overall is definitely a good, worthy outing, I should note the set is also quite well characterized which helps elevate the material as well. Feels like a set that likes the character a lot, understands them, Syndrome fans would be out here feeling Super. Excited to see Walter White and Dixie Kong before I vote!

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Comment X (Magneto by Slavic)
This set really came alive for me. Even though I haven’t seen X-Men and only know Michael Fassbender from a joke in Parks and Rec, I could easily envision the character, both inside the set and out. The frequent usage of gifs helps, sure, but you really described the gusto and sense of dramatics, while also capturing the occasional ennui that a mutant would feel having to fight weirdo space explorers. That‘s all in the writing, and it was all set relevant. Facial expressions, hand movements and just overall poses: It helped that they were described and it helped the set’s mechanics too.

Speaking of which, I liked the various “arcs” in the moveset. Some movesets have a central mechanic and have every move tie into that, or have multiple mechanics and still try to tie every move into that. Standards in service of specials. Magneto does it differently in that the tilts themselves follow a mechanic that was explained before, but executed differently uniquely for the standards. It kept the set from being overbearing. A similar overlapping mechanic was presented in the aerials with the metal scraps. The specials stand on their own, but are accompanied by the theming being echoed in the standards, and the specials are definitely strong enough to fill the set while the standards do their own thing. Absolutely mad props for that. It’s all a great harmonic set. At this point, I was dubbing this a Top 8 set for myself.

I do have to say that after that, I was surprised that this harmony didn’t crescendo into the grab game and instead lost momentum there. The aerials, while the scrap metal did something new and fullfilling each time, did lean a bit on the metal scraps to make them whole (which I doubt was a hard-coded choice since the other choices were explained in-set really well), so the grab game not coming back in full swing was a bit of a letdown.

Overall, I loved to see the different mechanics come to fruition in a really grand way both flair-wise and mechanics-wise but there is so much more of that potential to blossom in the set that it sours the feeling a bit. Still a really respectable and educational outing that I can absolutely recommend.

 

[FrozenRoy]

"You're a third rate leader with a fourth rate chat presence." (Seto Kaiba Slavic )

I feel like Kaiba and Pegasus ended up roughly equal in quality which is very fitting. For me, Kaiba came out just a bit ahead, but they're both locked in SVs likely. I also like the way their playstyles are opposed, as Kaiba feels much more about overwhelming kill confirms and combos while Pegasus is defensive and crafty. Kaiba's Specials are an absolute treat and feel like a baseline template that could be used for a large variety of unique combo decks, and it has a lot of good options itself. I do feel the trap cards contained most of my favorites (Shadow Spell, Crush Card Virus, Ring of Destruction, Interdimensional Matter Transporter) but the spells were still good with stuff like Ring of Defense. Swordstalker scaling with Kaiba's damage feels like an ingenious move as it allows Swordstalker to bridge both at low and high percents vs. foes compared to the pure-combo Saggi and pure-kill BLUE-EYES WHIIIIIITE DRAAAAAAAAGON.

This set has a lot of great stuff after with how it handles fighting game combos as well, which combines with summoned monster normals to give it a bit of a unique feel? Kaiba constantly slapping down cards to chain together creatures has a kind of kinetic, high energy feel to his dueling that fits the exciting nature of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime. A lot of work went into Kaiba's 12 Specials and it paid off with largely simple yet very playstyle heavy moves, which then works together with things like Jab (the writing here slayed me queen), Down Tilt, Neutral Aerial (this move was very unique!), and so on to give Kaiba clear definition. I will say I was not sold on XYZ Dragon Cannon's viability but it is a Command Aerial that's more there for flashy niche kill options than anything else and Kaiba has some ways to use it so it's fine.

I will say Kaiba does feel a bit wonky power-wise, maybe a bit UP and OP at the same time, I feel like he probably lands on the slightly lower power level but his combo ability when he does hit gives me pause. So it's probably fine? He ends up remining me of some characters like Kazuya or Byleth in Smash. I do think his normals could have used a little more HP, because some might be a bit too easy to bowl over and get Kaiba into disadvantage, sometimes even just like 2 HP on some of the 10 HPs or whatever, but this is also pretty minor. Madoka felt like the more top-to-bottom even set to me, but Kaiba was the more creative one, so it isn't any surprise Kaiba's also near the top of my rankings, Slavic kiiiiiiiiiilled it this contest. Good luck on the T50!

 

[n88]

Green Goblin by Kholdstare
Hype character choice: Green Goblin is one of the all-time great baddies and the movie version of him is an icon. The choices you've made about what to pull from the movie and how to use it are really great - Norman feels extremely Norman in a way that sounds super satisfying to play. I especially love that the Aerials and the Standards feel distinct from each other, and that the Standards pull so heavily from that brutal final confrontation. (Well, it's not final anymore, but whatever)

The 'remote glider' stuff is introduced really early on, in the first couple moves, but then the set just kinda stops talking about it - the Aerials are ostensibly the place to talk about that, as the moves the glider can perform remotely, but it goes without mention. The mechanic sounds cool and feels like it's teed up to be important, so it would have been nice to see it explored a little more. Not sure it's doing enough to justify itself at present.

This set does have the issues you might expect from a set that was written so quickly - the odd detail is either missing or has a placeholder-y "normal for this type of thing" value. It's still a good time, though.

Stray thoughts:

• Up Special and Shield Special talking about the properties of specific aerials I haven't read yet was a little hard to retain.
• When Goblin summons the glider with the double-tap Up Special, where does it show up relative to him?
• Love Neutral Special skeletonizing the enemy on a KO - lots of great little references sprinkled throughout the set, but that's one that would be especially satisfying in a gameplay context.
• Programming flight paths for the glider/bats sounds fun (despite my qualms), as someone who constantly uses Din's Fire for no clear reason.
• This has nothing to do with your moveset, but I realized the other day how much Movie Green Goblin looks like Jet Jaguar and it's been weighing on me.
• The set might be easier to learn if Gobby's variant moves had more similar triggers? You've got him double-tapping USpec to differentiate variations of the move, but NSpec is a press vs hold thing.
• Sleep Gas is an interesting pull for the Specials. Makes sense, I suppose; it's definitely something that's got 'mechanically special' vibes. Surprised me because it's not as iconic as the other stuff in the Specials (or some stuff in the Aerials).
• I wonder if Dash Attack wouldn't have a bit more killing power (or at least gimp set-up potential) than the set lets on just due to the knockback being entirely horizontal.
• I get more of a cocaine vibe from Norman.
• "Green Goblin pulls this trident-looking thing that is only used for this one attack and nothing else" - he really is just like Ganondorf.
• That Up Smash gif is some straight sentai bs.
• Would have loved a little more discussion of the applications of the Jumpscare mechanic in Down Smash.

 

[Katapultar]

One Final Voting Extension: Ends February 24th, Midnight PST!​

Most of our readers are nearly done, so we're giving another extension to help everyone get through this contest's sheer abundance of quality sets.

We're also pushing the starting date of Make Your Move 25 to March the 10th. Our newly-appointed leader Slavic will be OP'ing this contest, so look forward to that. I will also be posting Jamcon 5 roughly 2 weeks into MYM25 - try to get your opening week sets and reading finished before then!

Here's another update of all qualified voters.

Katapultar: 71 (Qualified)
GolisoPower: 35 (Qualified)
UserShadow: 31 (Qualified)
Rychu: 18 (Qualified!)
Slavic: 18 (Qualified!)
bubbyboytoo: 17 (Qualified!)
ForwardArrow: 15 (Qualified)
FrozenRoy: 13 (Qualified!)
Torgo the Bear: 10 (Qualified!)
BKupa666: 10 (Qualified!)
WeirdChillFever: 10 (Qualified!)
Almand: 10 (Qualified!)
Dilliam: 7 (3 to qualify!)
Khold: 5 (5 to qualify!)
n88: 5 (5 to qualify!)
Doc Monocle: 3 (7 to qualify!)
Junahu: 2 (8 to qualify!)
Smash Daddy: 2 (8 to qualify!)

We currently have five votelists! Fire some more our way!

 

[FruitLoop]

After many years, I've came back! Congrats to all that made it to MYM 24! There's too many movesets for me to grade to do any of the voting but I'm sure you all put lots of work onto your sets.

As for me, I'll be announcing that I'll be making an official submission for MYM 25 to come back to moveset making!

A little snippet for what's to come:



Step right up and roll the dice!

 

[FrozenRoy]

I'm The Joker Gas Baby (Poison Witch Lucrezia GolisoPower )

Finished up Poison Witch Lucrezia earlier, now ranked. The main issues I have with the set come down to balance, too many buffs that aren't super explored, and some confusing writing, with the first two obviously being the main points. Manticore Poison just feels flatout busted with 3x damage and immense knockback that by all accounts (both from the idea of 3x damage and the knockback described) turns Lucrezia into a near-OHKO machine, which can even be combined with her DSpec Manticore poison for setups, which is somewhat risky but the rewards overall feels toooo slanted that way vs. the difficulty of doing it / the risk of the moves themselves. Or combine DSpec Cobra + NSpec Manticore to just crumple the opponent and then hit them with a Manticore move, which is a cool combo but just too strong. More poison combo synergies may have been appreciated, although I can see some here (DSpec Cobra + NSpec Manticore, DSpec Spider + DSpec Manticore, DSpec Ivy + NSpec Manticore) A Hero crit is 2x and already makes his stuff potentially kill super early. This set also has 10 buffs on it and I don't feel like it juggles them that well, a decent amount of them get lost in the shuffle and the moveset doesn't take a lot of advantage of them. For example more specific moves could be made to take advantage of Amanita, my first general thought is something with a bonus effect if striking during starting lag / attack animation which synergizes with both Amanita (push through attack, hit opponent with effect) and Ivy (increase foe's starting lag, be able to attack them in that window more!). I think for this set, it may have been best to go down to 3 poisons per buff and give them more focus, but 5 poisons could work if you still expanded a lot. I will also note the throws at first had 3/4ths kill throws with one of them being a 2-hit OHKO, the latter would have dropped the set harder but fortunately it was edited out.

I'll also note that writing-wise this set is at times a bit confusing, sometimes because it is saying stuff that's just true by default, for example "She then jabs those two fingers 0.5 Units in front of her, coming out on Frame 8, dealing 5% damage and some major hitstun further amplified by Cobra venom. Be careful, though, as the hitstun also stales with each time you hit the attack." made me do a double take because staling decreases damage which decreases knockback and thus hitstun, so all attacks already stale with hitting. I just took this to mean the attack suffers increased hitstun staling. "Cobra allows all physical attacks dealing less than 10% damage to inflict hitstun, extending her combo potential and catching opponents." was also confusing for the same reason: attacks already inflict hitstun, so this statement is just saying what already happens, it briefly made me wonder if Lucrezia's attacks lacked hitstun but then I decided this just meant they have enhanced hitstun. This is less of a big issue but I did want to bring it up because I know you'd want to improve on it and that confusion can make a difference.

I know this is largely a negative comment so far, but I wouldn't say I disliked it entirely, and that it had some promise. The idea of seperate buffs / poisons depending on how you're attacking is Neat and explorable, and some of them are actually pretty cool by themselves, NSpec Amanita felt particularly cool for its translation of hallucinations. DSpec Butterfly was interesting although it felt rather weak as a pure solo buff. Lucrezia has a lot of fun attack animations! Down Tilt, Up Smash, Up Tilt, Forward Smash, Down Smash and Grab were all attacks with fun animations with the set rarely dipping into ones without a strong effort, IMO the direct attacking here felt a bit weaksauce as there didn't feel like a big playstyle aside from "apply poisons, hit opponents", I think it is telling the playstyle had no offering of specifics on how Lucrezia achieves her goals after putting her poisons on and I feel that is because she was a bit lacking there. Side Special was a pretty cool move, Isabelle Side Special is relatively unexplored space, and I thought Forward Smash was a very cool attack that IMO was the best non-Special in the set. I could see having used a "half-charge" idea on all of the Smash Attacks as a fun gimmick, or making it so the poison seeping at half charge means that the poison buffs selected got to seep in more and thus become more potent or something.

Also I do like moves such as Up Aerial that don't feel the NEED to be connected to her poison, even if UAir didn't feel particularly notable about it.

Overall, Lucrezia is a set that showed promise to me but didn't quite pull it together, so I would say The Creature (has some mechanical stuff I don't like compared to most, but the most solid direct fighting / non-Specials) and Passionlip (the best set top-to-bottom of yours I have read this contest. Especially the top!) remain your best sets this contest for me. I've heard Shin Godzilla is an unique experience, so I look forward to seeing if it can provide some goodness!

 

[n88]

Trafalgar Law by Rychu
This is one I'd heard a bit about before reading, in the context of some of the Fly/Cage discussions recently. It does feel like a cool spin on those old-MYMy ideas. Love the decision to make it strong as heck but put some very tight rails on it - feels like it really rewards a well-timed over-the-top offensive. This guy's powerset seems to be straight-up Calvinball, but you do a good job getting it all to mesh together in a way that feels stylish and fun. He deftly avoids the linear/boring gameplay that a lot of old riffs on these concepts were known for devolving into. Really tremendous stuff.

Stray thoughts:

• If Law lands a grab himself, does his counter-ready Scan state stay up until he throws the opponent, or is it dropped by landing the grab?
• Funny to think about Rooms in a mirror match, which the set addresses briefly but doesn't really dive into. I like the visual of overlapping Rooms like big Venn Diagrams where multiple Laws are souped up in the middle.
• Oh god, the object swapping. Do wish this had been simplified a bit, seems really hard to wrap your head around as a player, with as many variations as it has. The main use-case of switching items around plays off his other item-generating specials in a fun way; item stuff is always cool to me.
• Comboing the heck out of an enemy's heart with the sheathe/unsheathe mechanic is ridiculous. Very anime, 10/10.
• Generally really dig the sheathe/unsheathe buffering thing, cool take on a character like this. Don't quite follow the bit in FTilt where it says that his Up Special gets extra end lag when he does this though - I guess that must be a universal property of doing this, that you get a bit of extra end lag on the last attack in the string? I didn't catch a prior reference to that though.
• "some fancy tilting of the control stick can angle the sword" - Jeeves, fetch my formal wear. I'll be tilting the control stick this evening.
• The font changes size a time or two for no discernible reason. It shouldn't bother me. It really should not.
• It feels a little arbitrary that Dash Attack knocks hearts away? Mechanically interesting, but it does feel a bit disconnected from the move, and de-emphasizes his funky item teleportation stuff a hair.
• Kinda feels like the 'projectile' philosophy could have been applied to the jabby moves in-Room as well as the slashy ones? Not a big deal, but would have given you some more consistent properties on attacks.
• Dig the direction on his air game in general.
• The second sentence in the second paragraph of Down Aerial is a bit of a run-on - super nitpicky, I know, but it's a muddled move description in a set that's otherwise very digestible. I had to read the move a couple times to parse everything that was happening there. That one problem sentence also implies the DAir can be charged?
• Up Aerial has four of the moveset's fourteen usages of the word "ridiculous".
• Forward Smash is pretty slick - a little weird that it all counts as one attack for Scan but he can specifically buffer Shambles (and I assume only Shambles) in the middle of it?
• Sure, he has a DACUS, but how well do his aerials cancel momentum?
• If Law's grab gets interrupted does the lil Special Edition Grab Room disappear immediately?
• Referencing back to Room during the throws, I see it had a note that his throws dealt the same knockback in or out of the Room, which is referenced again a time or two in the throws. Bit moot with him effectively always being in a Room for the grab game, isn't it?
• Kind of a bummer that the throws don't play with the hitbox extension stuff when they're using his sword in weird ways.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Sopwith Camel (Enya Geil U UserShadow7989 )

Well, this one was a surprise!

I was expecting more of a 7 star RV set going in (and forgot she is the fast), but got much more of a mid 8 level set, and what is one of UserShadow's best direct fighting melee games in the contest (Toon Rollback means Pegasus takes control). I feel like compared to a lot of your other sets this contest Enya has more clearly defined strengths and weaknesses both in overall playstyle and attacks, with Enya being a fast combo character who struggles between early combo percents and late kill percents. Enya's combo game has paths with clear intent leaving from Jab particularly but also moves like Dash Attack and Down Tilt, along with a little spacing to go along with the more setup parts of her game such as Forward Tilt and Forward Aerial. I like how Enya has to deal with the larger scaling on her attacks in terms of maybe trying to stale for midgame damage vs. keeping them fresh for actual finishers!

Enya's Specials are also a strong core of moves that take vintage MYM concepts like illusions, minions and invisibility and makes them subtle flavors, I think Enya's fog is a very clever move when it comes to this kind of invisibility, it's a brief mindgame that is more about short term pressure than a long term whodunnit, and I think moves like pretty much all of her Smashes but particularly F-Smash and U-Smash play into it well, and then you get simple but effective zombie minions that work into her quick combo game. All of this, imo, gets tied into her sick Neutral Special, which serves as both her prime combo extender AND a way to knock foes into her setup AND, perhaps most interestingly, a pre-placed counter! I particularly liked the way this played into her Forward Throw, zombie minions and fog as all of those are things opponents want to clear out with a quick move, but if Enya decides to try and go for the Neutral Special hard prediction she can land the counter, so there's an uneasy tension to trying to remove Enya's setup vs. the chance of her taking one little prick and turning it into a counter starter.

This feels very fitting for Enya's character which I feel shone through the set, I like how it got across her craziness in the brutal and often very wild attack animations but still combined that with enough intelligence to make her feel more like "crazy schemer who is angry" rather than, say, "wild barbarian". It feels particularly impressive because Justice is a hard Stand to make function in Smash, but this set really pulled it off! And in a Jamcon's length of time, too.

Also since I couldn't find a good spot to put it into the other paragraphs, I felt like Up Smash was an importantly good move in this set: Cutting off platforms for Enya's faster falling air game and how her setup can be more ground-based PLUS working with her final throw's platform is interesting, the way it is used as an anti-aerial in the fog as a construct so she feels safe throwing it out, and I thought choosing to represent this in the set was clever and not something immediately obvious (IE I think some people would call it tacky, I do not).

When it comes to complaints...Down Aerial felt kinda "meh" (and I think the move misunderstands the prospect of DAir from recovering high -> Teleport), I probably would have made Neutral Aerial NOT stall to turn it into a shorthop combo starter for further emphasis on her fastfall speed vs. meh air-to-air, and while I love a lot of the fog and stuff it DOES feel like there could have been some room to expand on using the placed Fog somewhere, although I must confess I have no specific ideas. Up Tilt was maybe a bit of a mediocre standard as well. But overall? I'm surprised to say this competes with Marin as your 2nd best set this contest and surely has a firm slot on my RV list. Great work!

 

[FrozenRoy]

"Nothing good ever comes of her laughter. And she's always laughing."
W
(by ForwardArrow )​

In a contest full of quality movesets, it can be easy for some sets to be lost in the shuffle or considered less than a creator's other works. While ForwardArrow's moveset for W certainly didn't fall into the former, the fierce competition with Fairy Knight Tristan and Belzeb among his sets means I do feel like W hasn't quite gotten her due, and that's why I am typing up an advertisement for her with only 3 days left to the end of voting.

This set is, top to bottom, probably FA's most complete in the contest as it retains solid well thought out quality into the entire thing. It feels like it takes influence and inspiration from the best of Kupa and Slavic's moveset styles: Her chain explosive gameplay is intuitive to understand and not needlessly overlarge as some ancient MYM sets could be and calls back to Kupa sets such as Ratigan, while her elegant combo based melee fighting brings to mind recent Kupa sets' use of delicate melee with a twist that we saw on amazing movesets such as Mysterio and Walter White. Her Insult to Injury mechanic also feels right at home there, and combined with her graceful melee gives a Slavic-esque feel of free flowing direct attacking that dances around a mechanic (Madoka's MP, Kaiba's lag cancel / monster summons, Claire's inventory, Shigaraki's Decay). Given this is not a style FA frequently dabbles in it is impressive how well he brings it together.

Let us discuss Insult to Injury briefly, as the mechanic of bonuses against hitstunned foes seems simple at first glance, but it is woven into the set nicely by how it plays into W's game. She has plenty of explosives and traps, yes, but she only reaches her maximum potential to or from them by converting into them or directly converting off of them, not even by catching the opponent out. She can't hold back and swipe at opponents like a more Snake-type military expert, but has to aggressively force foes into it and directly take advantage. Similarly, W's Greninja/Sheik-esque combo game finds weaknesses in 50/50s or frame traps, as she misses valuable bonus effects if she does the necessary delays for these and thus has moves that if strung together without them can be mediocre.

The actual effects and melee themselves are proper payoff for it. Neutral Aerial is the standout of the aerials that allows W to convert her DI into knockback direction as a combo ender, which gives her somewhat committal control of her foe's knockback that works well into her traps, or her specific ranges on moves such as Up Special, or into a ledge game that her other aerials are adept at in addition to some traps. Forward Smash's carry ability lets W convert it into a kill, into sick positioning that again works into Neutral Aerial, or simply into more aggressive options to keep the opponent at heel against her traps. Up Smash is a brilliant way to give W a super flashy, potent move at both kill percents and low percents by appending a self sufficient bleeding mechanic onto it and her Down Throw, one she needs to work towards with her overall gameplan but that can put the foe on the back foot as much as anything else. I adore how seamlessly Down Throw merges together the Up Smash bleed and Down Tilt prone value, feeling organic and not just slapped on. Down Smash pulls double duty as well into both her melee game, serving as one of her few highly damaging anti-defense moves that also triggers her setup (but also means she has to be careful tossing it out so as to not blow it early). Jab, Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, Back Aerial, all solid moves that have clear playstyle ideas. One thing that helps this set is simply that it never gets "bad", lacking any noticeably flawed inputs or huge balance concerns, without just being bland.

Characterization? Feels spot on from all I know, with an appropriate level of enjoyment and sadism in her animations (Forward Throw with the laughing spin while setting up her foe's bomb is on point), not to mention slick animation use of her tail, the melee movements feel natural and never awkward, when I say it feels Slavic-esque one thing I mean is that I feel Slavic has a lot of moves where when you imagine their "look" and "feel" outside of gameplay use they fit right into Smash's style, Mami's Forward Tilt comes to mind. And that's one of the Slavic-esque things this set does.

To be honest when this set was previewed to me, I was pegging it to be more of a mid to high 8, so finishing it all this time later was quite the pleasant surprise! It not only kept the quality up to the end, but the quality of later moves built on the earlier moves, and I didn't even name them all like Side Special. This is a very me kinda set. I can find a few things to quibble with (FAir's 3-hit sweetspot feels a bit too potent for KOing given potential setups, DSpec should maybe last a few seconds longer, stuff like that), but it largely doesn't go higher just because there are a looooooot of strong sets this contest. So when you look at slick sets like Fairy Knight Tristan and Belzeb, don't forget to also look back at the first great set FA posted this contest, because you might just be missing out.

 

[FrozenRoy]

(By BKupa666 )​

Shigaraki? Syndrome? Move over you maliferous malcontents, Dixie Kong is the early duo set I think YOU should be paying attention to. One of the things that strikes out about Dixie Kong is her clear vision to make a complex and workable version of Dixie that is a viable newcomer, eschewing more "creative" ideas in exchange for one of the sets that could most wholesale be added to Smash without changes alongside W and Lyn, attached to a highly popular newcomer that comes across as a true "proof of concept" set. Dixie feels like she is not only representing herself fantastically, but also the Donkey Kong Country series as a whole by making them a (semi-)duo set by bringing in the partner from her headlining game in Kiddy Kong.

I quite enjoy the more subdued-yet-nuanced mechanics at play with how Kiddy Kong works, feeling more directly like a Nana/Luma mix compared to, say, Syndrome's Omnidroid, which is combined with a veeeeeeeery strong set of Specials. The bullet hell possible between Dixie's barrels, her two forms of bubble gun, and of course perhaps most importantly her classic Helicopter Spin Up Special: This is the kind of move any Dixie Kong set needs to nail to be good and Kupa did so, allowing it to serve as the basis for a strong aerial game. In fact speaking strictly in terms of air games this is probably Kupa's strongest (Vulture, maybe?), Dixie has a lot of well put together options for combos (NAir, FAir), ledgeguarding (BAir, DAir), neutral play (FAir, NAir), killing (UAir, DAir) and even movement (DAir on barrels anyone?) that show Dixie as a truly versatile aerial-focused monkey. Combining this with the momentum shenanigans Dixie can pull off she has a sublime simian style of masterful movement and acrobatic aerials!

The rest of the attacks don't feel as traditionally "creative" but nonetheless get across a strong playstyle of Dixie as someone who is more of a poking style character on the ground (Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, to an extent Up Tilt due to poking on platforms!) who wants to either set opponents up to get knocked down by Kiddy Kong or transition into her aerial game after zoning the opponent out. Her Smashes even fit into this with actions such as the combo extending Up Smash, the long lasting Forward Smash to frustrate foes dodging poking hits, and the clear out Down Smash for when opponents pull into her. This is one area her Side Special thrives, snagging opponents cautiously shielding her blows on the approach or apprehensive of her projectile game. It is all woven together well.

Characterization feels approached by way of gameplay, this set FEELS more Donkey Kong Country than Diddy (or DK) in the actual game! This is a good way to go about it but the set still consciously characterizes with ambitious animations while making moves nonetheless, such as comparisons of how Dixie uses her gun vs. Diddy, the excess number of lovingly drawn images that make this set velvety smooth to imagine, extras like a Stage and Spirits before it was cool, and more!

If it falters anywhere, the Kiddy Standards do feel on the fairly weak end and a bit too strongly attached to "he heavy" compared to maybe having a bit more to do with the moveset (IMO he should have had a good aerial launcher as Dixie feels she could use another one), the Up Tilt wind hitbox feels maybe at odds with the set's overall vision and the grab game could be improved and maybe overdoes it a bit on the KO Throws, nothing too much but in a hyper competitive contest...

Ultimately, though, this feels like a Definitive Dixie + Kiddy set (I hesitate to go full "Definitive Dixie" as she could have a very good solo set!) and IMO was clearly Kupa's 2nd best set this contest so y'all better take a moment to think about that and give her some respect. Great work Kupa and I am really torn up about not being able to give this the full voting love I want due to how great other sets are.

 

[Katapultar]

Voting Period is now closed!
​

Top 50 will be out be out soon. Look forward to that, and thank you to everyone who took the time to read and vote! We got 12 voters this time around.

 

[Katapultar]

The world had changed. It started with the League of Villains; their release of Shin Godzilla and its subsequent rampage, the encroachment of the Avalon Lostbelt on Earth, and the mysterious pandemic "moonsickness" those who stayed behind. Then, in the chaos of it all, the one who knocks tapped on the celestial doorway and wrenched the Goddess off her throne, ending the Law of Cycles.

The law had to be restored.



Trafalgar Law set foot on the island, peering towards the massive castle and surrounding medieval city that occupied what was once known as Duelist Kingdom. He wasn't alone - several Omnidroids burst out from the sandy beach to eliminate him, but Law had no problem cleaving through them. Or so he thought. The Omnidroids were dispersing into clouds and reforming, completely immune to being cut. Much like a certain clown pirate.

"Damn it! Have they already adopted nanomachine technology for the Omnidroids?"

This wasn't good. If these Omnidroids were made of nanomachines, then Law couldn't just use his Room to remove vital components from their insides. He had to destroy them down to the last nanonmachine, but his skillset wasn't suited to that. Should he retreat? No, this was the rebels' last chance to take the fight to Him, to hold them back from infiltrating the magic academy where the rest of the rebels were sheltered.

Now Law was surrounded by 6 gigantic Omnidroids. But before he could use Shambles to switch places with one of them to escape, they all froze up, trembling as they broke apart and their nanomachines collapsed to the floor in what resembled an oversized pile of ash.

Approaching Law from one end of the beach was Syndrome, a finger pointed towards the broken nanomachines with a smug, satisfied look on his face.

"Well, that worked out better than I expected. Not so super now, are we Law?"

"Syndrome!"

"Hey, relax! I just saved you now, didn't I?"

"You've put on shows where you "saved" people from your Omnidroids. What's your game?"

"Well, if you must know, that two-timing Walt stole my technology and is using it against me. I give him a little money for his drug empire, and he goes and becomes a god! We're all just civilians to his Mr. Incredible."

"So you're trying to take down Walter White as well?"

"Exactly! You won't get far without my help, but I wouldn't mind some assistance on my end. What do you say?"

"...Fine."

"Great! Then say hello to my little jamming waves. Never liked those Mads' Dream Buster for destroying one of my Omnidroids during the League of Villains' audition, but it sure came in handy for upgrading my glove. My Omnidroids will never defy me again. And neither will Belzeb's nanomachines."



With Syndrome's help, Law breezed through all the Omnidroids that approached them. They soon reached the outskirts of the city, where Fairy Knight Tristan greeted them with a look of intrigue.

"So you insects have come this far?"

"You must be Baobhan Sith, one of Morgan's 3 Fairy Knights. Peagsus told us all about you."

"Is that so? Not that it will do you much good. I'm having too much fun for you to come and interrupt it. I need you to die, please, and give up your shoes while you're at it."



"Shambles!"

With that word, Law switched places with Syndrome and took the devastating, magic-infused ax kick that was meant for a terrified Syndrome. The supervillain was now behind Baobhan, bewildered and regaining his composure slower than Law would have liked. Law blocked the kick with his sword, but for all his OP strength he was being overpowered by the second.

"Syndrome! Now!"

Syndrome pointed at Baobhan, and the blue energy beam from his gloved fingertip froze her in place, scowl and all. That would have been the perfect opportunity to finish Baobhan, had Law not collapsed and coughed up blood on the spot. Law had suffered a curse earlier, hit by one of Baobhan's magic bullets while defending Syndrome from a stray. Law didn't exactly like Syndrome, he certainly wasn't someone he'd give up his life for, but his ability to shut down the nanomachines was vital to stop Walter White. Even if he fell, Syndrome could still help the rest of the rebels.

Baobhan was fighting against her restraints too. Now moving at a snail's pace. A little faster now. Magical energy flaring up. That leg was getting closer and closer to Law's head. Tear through his body in a matter of seconds. Syndrome should have moved Baobhan away with his sub-zero energy, slammed her back and forth into the ground until she lost conscious, but now he couldn't even budge her.

Then, just before the leg made contact with Law's head, a beam of golden light flew through Baobhan's head. She froze, then crumpled and trembled as she clutched her head with a look of realisation and terror. Then a horrible scream rang out.

When Baobhan was done, she stared at her own hands, like she was in another person's body.

"Uhhh... hello?" Syndrome stared in bewilderment, his finger raised half-heartedly as if he couldn't decide whether to fire another sub-zero beam. Baobhan turned to look his way, but she seemed to be staring past him, at something only she could see.

"Welcome back, Baobhan." It was Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom, striding towards the group with her rifle raised, smoking golden steam from its barrel.

"Ferrijit...?" Baobhan asked in a daze.

"I gave you your memories back - from who you were before you were resummoned."

"That's right, I remember. W and that boy saved me, we went to Queen Morgan's castle to celebrate. And then..."

"Teridax forced you into a Master-Servant pact to get to Morgan. She gave herself up to save you, and then he destroyed you. With Morgan gone, it became a two-way battle between Magnus and Teridax. Belzeb was there, but the League of Villains had Magneto to hold it off. But Walter White turned out to be the biggest threat of all." As she was addressing Baobhan, Ferrijit knelt at Law's side, extracted a purple potion attached to her hip and poured it into her mouth. With a gasp for air, Law jolted upright and the colour returned to his face.

"Remember when Lucrezia, Barghest and Law there uncovered that Creature? It turned out to be a large fragment of the ancient god Davoth, connected to a higher realm beyond mortal comprehension. Walter captured the Creature, used his meth formula to cook it up and consume it. Combined it with your spirit core and the platinum chip to gain access to the Throne of Heroes. There he came face to face with the Goddess Madoka: he took some of her power, but she was able to escape into our world where she's staying with our group as we speak, allowing us the last fragment of her power to protect the magic academy from Walter's influence. After gaining a degree of godhood, Walter resummoned Morgan, without her memories from our time meeting her, and using their combined power to wipe out Magnus and Teridax and gain complete control over Belzeb. If we don't stop Walter, the universe will bend to his will."

"...Is that so? He was no Beryl Gut, but that Walt did lead the extermination of those horrible fae through Belzeb's nanonmachines."

"For better or worse. Walt and his Servant Morgan managed to fuse Avalon with part of our world, too. It's a good thing we defeated Cernunnos before that."

"Hmph. So that Fairy Knight is our ally now, is she?" Asked Law.

"Yes. We're going to need all the help we can get to take down Walter."

Baobhan held her chin in thought. "Guys, we might be able to get through to Queen Morgan so she can help us. Ferrijit, can you restore Morgan's memories like you did mine?"

"...Honestly? I'm not sure. Morgan might be too powerful and indifferent to us to regain the memories of her previous summons. The memory blast only worked on you because you formed a strong bond with us. The girls at the magic academy made it, no thanks to the Goddess Madoka collaborating with them. They sure are something."

"Getting Morgan to our side sure would help. Fighting her head-on would be immensely difficult, but we don't have the choice to back out, do we?" Law inquired.

"Yeesh. Don't want to be anywhere near that Avalon woman. Not exactly a fan of having my technology jammed by the Lostbelt."

"We're not going to charge in there blindly, of course. Come on, I'll take you to our temporary base."



The group wandered the empty, nanomachine piled streets of the town until they came across one very conspicuous house wedged tightly between two buildings, so tightly it could pop out of place. It's a cartoon cottage! Ferrijit led the group inside, earning a sour, suspicious look from Law and Syndrome and a curious gaze from Baobhan. Sitting at a roundtable, on a comfortable green recliner behind a fireplace, was Maximillion Pegasus reading a manga and sipping on some fine wine. On noticing the group, Pegasus slams his manga shut and gets up to greet them jovially.

"Ferrijit! You've returned safely! And I see you're in good spirits, Lawy boy."

Ferrijit gave a short salute. "Yes sir. Do Baobhan's memories look fine to you?"

"Yes. Just the way they were before she was lost to us. Truly marvelous."

Baobhan suddenly felt exposed and self-conscious. Pegasus was a good man and she liked him, but she couldn't help but remember her earliest encounter with him. Pegasus, W, Yin and Benny had confronted her. She later learned that the former had read her mind to learn of her tragic backstory, and W inflicted quite some damage against Baohban with weapons crafted from mors gathered from the surrounding area of the Avalon Lostbelt. She would come to form a connection with W later on, but the two didn't exactly start off as friends.

The group sat down to have a break, to plan and recover just before they confronted Morgan.

Syndrome looked very weirded out as Dark Rabbit, wearing a butler's costume, poured him a cup of tea from a cartoon kettle into a cartoon teacup. "Is this... safe to drink?"

"Of course! If there's one good thing about this Lostbelt, it's that we duelists can manifest our duel monster cards into reality."

"I've seen weirder, honestly." Law chimed in, as Baobhan crouched in the corner of the house, inspecting a cartoony pair of Mickey Mouse shoes with intrigue.

"You know, I can't help but feel a strange connection with these "duel monsters", Pegasus. Almost like I'm one of them myself."

"Why, that would be fascinating. I've never had the chance to speak to a duel monster, other than my beloved Toons."

Law leaned back on his chair, swinging his legs up and placing them on the table. "Not to interrupt your small talk, but what's the plan for dealing with Morgan?"

Peagsus leaned forward with a wry smile, tenting his fingers together like he's copying Gendo Ikari's pose. "About that..."




The group of Law, Syndrome, Baobhan, Ferrijit and Pegasus approached the castle at the centre of the island, a sleek marvel of metallic blue. Law led the way as he sliced the thick metal gate clean off its hinges. They passed through a vast hallway with blue, circuit-like lines running along the walls and ceiling, and abnormally tall knights lined up along the walls, standing at attention and still as statues. Then the knights came to life and moved in to attack. Not even Baobhan was safe, so it seems Morgan already knew of her treachery. Ferrijit blasted knights through the head; Baobhan pirouetted and released lances of blood to tear them to pieces; Syndrome lassoed one knight into others and enjoyed it; Pegasus had his Toons engage the knights in cartoony dust clouds; and Law used Shambles to remove the knights' chestplates and heads, revealing that they were empty suits animated by magic. It was an easy win, but not even a fraction of what Morgan was capable of. They had to be cautious.

At last they reached the long, expansive throne room. There was Morgan, sitting with her legs crossed, resting a chin on her fist and just waiting for the heroes to approach her. Law and Ferrijit had their guards up, looking around as if to expect an attack from any direction. Syndrome looked patheitc, as if he wanted to make a run for it, Pegasus was eerily calm, and Baobhan looked conflicted, as if she were betraying her beloved Queen.

"So you've come. Though you have barged in and defeated my puppets, I shall allow you an audience with me. Choose your words wisely."

Ferrijit stepped up, undeterred by the overwhelming presence of her adversary. "Queen Morgan. You were summoned as a Servant by Walter White, correct? Is that what you truly want?"

"I have taken that man as my husband. With Belzeb's nanomachines, we have purged the world of nearly all the fae. My Master shall bring forth the utopia that and create a kingdom for all eternity."

Law stepped in, furious. "Utopia? Are you serious? That man is just another kingpin who just so happened to obtain godhood! He only cares about sating his pride and ego! Not what happens to the weak involved with his power struggles."

"Silence!" Morgan commanded, but Law did not back down. She then turned to her adopted daughter. "And what about you, Baobhan? Surely you don't mean to turn against me? It is not too late to return to my side. Or shall I crush these insects before you, to show you just how foolish it is to side with them?"

Baobhan gupled, twiddling her fingers. "Do you really not remember anything? Remember how those guys rescued me and we all had that feast together? Or how you sacrificed yourself to protect me? Please."

"..........."


".....I do. Morgan answered, giving her adopted daughter a uncharacteristically warm smile. The rest of the gang were just as surprised, except for Pegasus.

Law dropped his guard slightly, then reconsidered. "What's to stop you from being our enemy? Don't Servants lose all of their memories when they return to the Throne of Heroes? The magic academy taught us that much."

"I used advanced magecraft to preserve the memories of my former incarnation. Walter's ascension was convenient for ending the stalemate between Teridax, Magnus and myself, but I have no allegiance to that man. For the sake of all worlds, he must be stopped. Return the Goddess to her throne and bring order back to this world."

"Why didn't you just side with us to begin with?" Ferrijit asked.

"Walter White watches my every move. For all my strength, I could not stand against him alone. He possesses the Infinity Gauntlet, outfitted with the 6 Soul Gems he stole from Madoka. I needed to bide time, pretend to be your enemy to motivate you all. Then, when you were all ready, I would stand by your side."

"It's true, everyone. Morgan planned this before she was taken and executed by Teridax. She announced her plan mentally, and I picked up on it using my Millennium Eye. I had to keep it a secret, or else Walter would pick up on it."

"And now Walter knows. He will come for us shortly. Pegasus, I take it you have made all the preparations?"

"But of course! And that's where you come in, Kaiba boy."

As if on cue, a massive hole was blasted through the nearest wall. Emerging from the debris were KOS-MOS and Seto Kaiba, mere ants compared to the size of the hole they made.

"Took you dweebs long enough to prepare."

"Come now, Kaiba boy! The future of the world is at stake here. We had a lot to juggle."

"You mean attending your mumbo jumbo academy? Sure. Meanwhile, we at KaibaCorp have gone above and beyond and created the ultimate combat android. Feast your eyes on KOS-MOS!" Kaiba gestured towards his female companion dramatically.

"Greetings. I am happy to be of service."

Syndrome looked unimpressed. "This... woman is supposed to be the strongest machine? Ha! My Omnidroids could squash her like a bug!"

"Is that right? Well, it's a good thing I salvaged one of your machines to demonstrate KOS-MOS's true power. Go, show them your strength!"

One of Syndrome's massive Omnidroids clambered through the hole KOS-MOS made in the wall, just big enough to squeeze through. The Omnidroid reared one of its clawed arms to strike KOS-MOS, but she dashed underneath it and delivered a devastating uppercut. Such was KOS-MOS's strength that she flew through the other end of the Omnidroid, generating such concussive force that what remained of the droid flew in all directions in an eruption of steel and circuits. Syndrome's jaw dropped. Ferrijit, Baobhan and Pegasus were impressed, and even Law appeared to crack a smile.

"Impressive. That machine may very well be on par with a Lostbelt King, perhaps even a Beast." Morgan complimented.

"KaibaCorp technology settles for nothing less. Walter is going to pay for using armed goons to steal the platinum chip from KaibaCorp."

"So I take it we're ready, Pegasus sir?"

"Indeed. We can call the others from the magic academy with Kurogiri's warp gates, but it's too risky for all of us to fight Walter at once."

"So we're the vanguard, huh?" Law chimed in.

"Got a problem with that? You'd better keep up with KOS-MOS and I."

"Hmph. I'll curse that drug dealer to death and take his shoes for myself!"

"Enough talk! He's coming right now," said Morgan.

A golden ring formed in the centre of the room. It expanded slowly, crackling with electricity and releasing that the party were able to withstand. Except for Syndrome, who was comically sent rolling away and through the hole KOS-MOS made.

The ring was soon large enough for a human to pass through. On the other side of the portal was darkness and a green mist. Then a human-shaped silhouette appeared, with what appeared to be a fedora and a raised gauntlet.

Law drew his sword and adopted a stance.

Baobhan gathered darkness to create a doll, preparing to use Fetch Failnaught.

Ferrijit pointed her rifle at the portal, purple energy in the shape of a diamond gathering at the muzzle.

Pegasus summoned Thousand-Eyes Restrict.

Kaiba summoned all 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

KOS-MOS prepared gatling gun.

And Syndrome peeked from behind a corner like a coward.


All in the face of their final opponent, emerged from the portal and staring down his enemies...

"Say my name."













The MYM24 Top 50

1) Walter White by BKupa666
2) Seto Kaiba by Slavic
3) KOS-MOS by Smash Daddy and FrozenRoy
4) Morgan by FrozenRoy
5) Maximillion Pegasus by UserShadow7989
6) Belzeb by ForwardArrow
7) Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom by Katapultar
8) Fairy Knight Tristan by ForwardArrow
9) Syndrome by BKupa666
10) Trafalgar Law by Rychu

11) W by ForwardArrow
12) Catarina Claes by Katapultar
13) Madoka Kaname by Slavic
14) Constance von Nuvelle by WeirdChillFever
15) Bubble Witch Marin by UserShadow7989
16) Gareth by FrozenRoy
17) Fairy Knight Gawain by FrozenRoy
18) The Three Stooges by UserShadow7989
19) Yin Manacuff by Katapultar
20) Dixie Kong by BKupa666

21) Tomura Shigaraki by Slavic
22) Hubert von Vestra by FrozenRoy
23) Cid Highwind by UserShadow7989
24) Soda Popinski by BKupa666
25) Minamoto no Raikō by Katapultar and FrozenRoy
26) Enya Geil by UserShadow7989
27) Claire Redfield by Slavic
28) Waki Nagamori by Katapultar
29) Asagao by Katapultar
30) Calliope Mori by bubbyboytoo

31) Hugo by Almand
32) Lucille Ernella by Katapultar
33) Honchkrow by UserShadow7989
34) Hopper by UserShadow79893
35) Pete by Junahu
36) Lyn by Slavic
37) The Creature by GolisoPower
38) The Forgotten by KholdStare
39) Niva by Katapultar
40) Kactuar by Junahu

41) Cookie Scouts by bubbyboytoo
42) Hotaru Tsuchigumo by Katapultar
43) Magneto by Slavic
44) Passionlip by GolisoPower
45) Ritsu Tainaka by Katapultar
46) Fruity Yummy Mummy by UserShadow7989
47) Tainted Forgotten by bubbyboytoo
48) The Science Team by bubbyboytoo and KholdStare
49) Benny by KholdStare
50) Morshu by Janx_uwu
​

 

[Katapultar]

What a Top 50 that was! This turned out a lot better than I expected, possibly on par with MYM23 for what I consider to be my personal best contest.

- Very satisfied to see Ferrijit get a 7th placing above the Dancing Clown, wasn’t sure if she was going to T10 for a while. Really wanted Yu-Gi-Oh! to be represented as one of the franchises I T10’d, and between Ferrijit, Kaiba, Pegasus and even Tristan it’s gained a lot of traction this contest. Yu-Gi-Oh! feels like one of my most prominent franchises now, and holds a special place to me as having monster designs I really like, and the franchise that holds the record for most sets to place without any non-placings at 6. It’s why I like to put a lot of care into any YGO set I make. Also, working on her set made me like the Tr-Brigade archetype more so.

- I didn’t think Catarina would place that high! She’s become one of my favourite anime characters and one of my personal favourite sets I’ve made. It still astounds me how everything came together for me to be able to write her set: from the stockpile of ideas, having recently finished My Next Life as a Villainess season 2, and getting days off from work due to lockdown (which I was happy about from the start, more time to write!). I was actually frustrated that I couldn’t participate in Jamcon 3, and the other 2 Jamcons to some degree, but Catarina more than made up for that. Much as I want to participate in more Jamcons, it’s important to me that I create a satisfying product that I can get pumped to write up, both concepts and character-wise.

(That Ferrijit and Catarina received SVs from different people, minus Froy who SV’d both of them, shows that they had different appeal to them. I wonder if I could take appealing traits from both to appeal to a wider audience and place higher? Placing super-high and winning isn’t my main priority though, as great as it feels; such were the positive results of this contest that I may as well placed 1st!)

- Having all 10 of my sets place was a pleasant surprise! I thought that Ritsu, and even Lucille before that, would not place for the longest time. I was mentally prepared for that, told myself that I’d still be happy with those sets even if they didn’t place, and that it would be an experience in humility. Unlike recent contests with MYM21 Asagao and Ibaraki-Douji, I feel like I didn’t have a single “bad” set this contest, nothing where part of it felt half-hearted or that anyone was explicitly negative on. But then, we’ve all improved a fair bit, and I believe the same could be said about everyone else’s performances.

- The OCs Yin and Waki might have been my most divisive sets this contest! Some people really liked them, others not so much. They were both really inspired though, and I was engrossed and enjoyed writing them a lot. It probably says something about what has been perceived as my “chaotic” movesertting style, when I get to invent a character and invent crazy powers for them for the sake of the moveset. I’m not in a huge hurry to make more OCs, as next contest I’d rather focus on characters I’m drawn to, just like I was with my first 7 out of 8 MYM23 sets. Making sets for anime schoolgirls like Tomoyo and Ochako was fun, reminded me of MYM12 and the fun of making sets for non-video game characters.

- Asagao and Hotaru were the two ninja sets founded on ideas, being more out-there and less grounded in melee and so. The ninja characters feel like my go-to for crazier set ideas, though I am not drawn to them compared to characters like Catarina, Ferrijit and Ritsu, and I am personally finding the duplicate concept to be stale to work on. It’s still very potent though, as US has demonstrated with Hina and Jodie. I also treated Niva as something of a “ninja” character, but I made her more so out of liking her character. And Lucille was founded on ideas, but not being a ninja she had fundamentally different concepts.

- Raikou did better than I expected! Doing a joint set with Froy was one of the many highlights of this contest, born from a concept of crit stars. We practically finished her in 2 days together. But if we joint again, I’d definitely want to do a character that we both actually like. Joint sets were definitely on the rise this contest, and I’d love to see more of them next contest, especially for Jamcons.


For next contest: not drawn to winning or placing at the top, but making sets for characters I’m drawn to. Improve my writing style further, see if I can make sets with more widespread appeal. Experiment to see whether making them more grounded and less chaotic would strike that chord. Participate in every Jamcon, but make sure the character and/or concepts satisfy me enough to be motivational.






BKupa666 - Big congratulations for your win! Walter White definitely feels like a more “Kupa’ian” 1st place rep than Bowser Jr., with his stronger character presence and being from a live-action show that doesn’t fit the mold of video games. And you’ve made a lot of sets for those kinds of characters. I love it when a setmaker wins with a character that fits them to a T. Great to see Syndrome get into the Top 10 in spite of challenges, he was such a beloved set at the start and is an absurdly fitting character for you. I’ve also enjoyed seeing your melee game evolve compared to MYM22, I’m sure that’s a strong reason for your appeal.

Slavic - Kaiba placed much higher than I expected! He sure had some widespread appeal, as with your other sets for their quality. My personal take on your style is that you’re able to find a happy medium between keeping your sets grounded while still introducing concepts that can excite people. I feel that Mami showed that us that you could play with the big boys, and then in MYM24 you showed that you could pull it off consistently. Even if Kaiba didn’t place on the Top 10, you definitely earned your leadership role! I was also expecting Madoka to join Mami at 7th place as the votes came in - she’s one of those sets that turned out to be more popular as time went by and more people read her. You truly put a phenomenal amount of work into Madoka and Kaiba, went above and beyond with their extras thanks to the magic touch of Kactuar. Was happy to get a Shigaraki set too - we can keep up our MHA rivalry, though I imagine you’ll win out in the near future.

Froy - This was a stellar contest for you! Getting 2 Top 5 placings is insane, and honestly most of your works were of very high quality. You had an especially high amount of Fate sets this contest, just a little more to overtake darth meanie. Gareth was like a mini Black Polnareff, also made in 2 days at 17k+ and focused heavily on melee, perfect for the Jamcon.

Smash Daddy - Got that Top 3 placing! It seems doing a joint set with Froy turned out great for you. I know this contest wasn’t the best for you, you were swamped in work and didn’t have time to read. I know you’ve been sorting things out though, KOS-MOS made me remember the joy of reading your sets. Also miss your Top 13s and some of the back-and-forths we had on Discord.

Usershadow - I feel like our contests almost mirrored each other this time around. We both made 10 sets, two Witchverse OCs and one Yugioh trump card that got on the Top 10. We also SV+’d each other’s yugioh set, huge thanks for that! Flattered that Ferrijit was someone’s favourite set this contest when Walter White and other sets existed. Pegasus won out for as I thought his trap-based approach was especially unique (move around during your end lag so you’re less of a sitting duck) along with his individual moves, and he has the most vibrant and stellar set of animations of any set I’ve read. Also, congratulations for participating in all 4 Jamcons! They were definitely successful to you, and I’m sure you’ll finally win one in the near-future.

ForwardArrow - Getting what was almost 3 Top 10 placings with your serious sets really shows your consistent appeal. I daresay Fairy Knight Tristan and Belzeb were practically Master Xehanorts and Primordial Darknesses in their own right. Making such a hugely popular Jamcon set was especially astonishing! Seems like super heavyweight eldritch abominations are a winning formula for high-placings and getting Goliso’s SV+, and almost getting Kupa’s to boot. Almost makes me want to tackle a big super heavyweight myself. I also enjoyed Tristan Taylor, and would certainly welcome more “joke” sets of his kind. Finally, I really appreciate you reading and commenting sets quickly, especially when you’ve taken a backseat in MYM to do your own story writing. It’s part of the reason I read and comment as fast as I do, to fill in your shoes and the dedication you put in.

Rychu - It’s astonishing that you made such a popular set just after your return in MYM23! That Law is only 10k and has more than 4 Specials makes it more commendable, in my book. Law is easily the best set you’ve made, even compared to your older sets for their time. I’d even compare him to Mami from last contest, in a set that’s a huge quality spike for their setmaker. Jackie Chan was really fun for his short length too (very happy for short length to be a trend). Makes me wonder what you’ll bring to the table next contest, whether you’ll be the next Slavic. For how long you’ve been around, you and Law absolutely deserved your Top 10 placing.

WeirdChillFever - Congratulations for another high-performing WCF set! You’re certainly setting a trend, and have no shortage of ambition with aiming for the Top 5 (and not impossible for you to win!). You’ve certainly set yourself up with Fire Emblem, and I always enjoy seeing more Ducktales sets from you, as of all your franchises that feels like the one most unique to you. Also excited at the prospect of a Fate set from you, to continue the F/GO trend that has built up over the last few contests.

bubbyboytoo - I enjoyed all of your sets this contest! Even if only Cookie Scouts placed, your Jamcon sets are always clean and pleasant to read. I might have been the one person who slightly preferred Dogma and Ollie to Calliope, who was still a solid set. I understand that you had the most unique votelist of everyone this contest, and a tendency to play it somewhat safe with your sets’ execution. That’s perfectly fine! If you were willing to take more risks or came up with an amazing concept like Law’s to have the melee play off, I’m sure you could make an absolute top-quality set while still staying true to your own movesetting philosophies - you mentioned Cid being what you’d like to your endgame to be like. Particularly interested in more Helltaker, Vtubers and any devilish girls you have in mind. Also haven’t forgotten about your offer to look at any Vtuber anyone conceptualizes (have been considering a set for Hakos Baelz myself). I’d be especially interested in seeing more comments from you next contest, and hope to make a set that’s a big hit with you.

Almand - Hugo was more popular than I expected! I feel like a bit of a jerk for not being as high on him as others, especially when I quite enjoyed your MYM23 sets, so I’ll definitely think upon your entries in the next contest. Sleaze looks like a pretty exciting OC, and I’d be interested in seeing Alex from what you’ve brought up in his melee, and your knowledge on Smash mechanics in general. Your contributions outside of movesetting are appreciated too - your frame data and FAF lists are handy (I keep them bookmarked), and I really enjoyed your positive comments and attitude! Very glad to have you on board with us.

Junahu - You made a huge return this contest! Kactuar has certainly become an influential set in modern times, and Pete was a very fun and wild set that proved to be a surprising hit for a few people. I know you have a trick up your sleeve for next contest, too. Who knows, maybe you’ll pull a Kupa and hit it big? Even with a long time past, Pete and Kacutar feel like they have the same impact your older sets, going above-and-beyond with presentation and other aspects some people wouldn’t consider.

Goliso - You did a huge amount this contest! Had the second most sets at 9, and like US you participated in every Jamcon, and one of those produced what is arguably your best set to date. Was absolutely hoping that Creature would not fall off my votelist, what with all the Dodongos we got at the end of this contest. Have enjoyed your positivity, your Discord activity, your story write-ups to go with your set posts and contributing a lot to the collaborative story mode thread. On a more personal note, I enjoy how you’re making sets for newly-acquired tastes, like making Passionlip and Jinako after getting into Fate/Grand Order this contest, and the strong likelihood of making Eldlich the Golden Lord now that you’ve gotten into Yu-Gi-Oh! through Master Duel. Oh, and your participation of the Witchverse - looking forward to Veronica too, and really need to take a look at her updated preview. Also glad to hear you’ve learned a lot from MYM24, very interested in seeing how you’ll apply it to your sets from here on out.

KholdStare - I get the impression you had bigger plans this contest, in the form of either Overhaul or King Dice (would love to see them both, and don’t know if the Cuphead Show and upcoming DLC would inspire more King Dice work?) and doing major editing and reading. Even so, you had a good contest! And beyond your sets, you absolutely deserve recognition as the creator of the Jamcon contests, which have proven to be a huge success. Honestly, you were a hero this contest: we got 24 Jamcon sets this contest between the 4 Jamcons, and I’m sure MYM25’s hypothetical 6 Jamcons will provide much more. I enjoyed all of your Jamcon character choices, even Micolash would have been despite having never heard of the character prior to seeing his set preview. It’s deservingly fitting that Green Goblin and Benny managed to place. I do hope life is kind to you and you’ll be able to participate next contest!

Janx_uwuw - Congratulations for your placing in this competitive contest!

dilliam - Teridax was a big improvement from you, and it seems like you want to tackle him again to capture him better. Looking forward to seeing what sets you have up your sleeves for next contest, especially the Devil!

Torgo the Bear - Sounds like you’ll be more active next contest, with planned sets and the intention to read more. I do like the roster you’ve established, and dedicated plans to post sets for all of those characters, that’s not something you see often in MYM. Your dedication to character-based extras is also fun!

Wizfoot - I feel like you were overlooked this contest, and missed out on additional advice that could have helped you improve. I know you have Mugen and Tifa though, and MYM looks set to throw out more comments during the contest itself.





Expect Jamcon 5 one fortnight into MYM25’s opening. I plan on posting it on Wednesday 23rd, 3:30pm PST, so look forward to that! Can’t wait to see what people make for it.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Congratulations to all the winners here, and boy is there a lot of them! BKupa for being this contest’s winner, big congrats on that! Walter White was an exquisite set that deservedly took home the All-Super-Votes home run win!
Congrats to Smady for hitting top 3 with his set. He’ll be missed as leader for a reason.
Congrats to Froy for hitting the mythical dual top 5 and congrats to FA for hitting top 10 twice!
UserShadow and Katapultar really unleashed the beast with an inane set count this contest and of course congrats on their top 10 placements as well. Congrats to Rychu for taking his first top 10!
Slavic hits the big time too and deservedly so. Seto Kaiba was a masterpiece of a set that I’m glad got recognition.
Congrats to those that placed either way, so congrats to my buds Bubby, Khold and Goliso, relative newcomer Almand and returning challenger Junahu. It wasn’t easy to place this time and your voices, chat presence and writing acumen are greatly appreciated. Shoutouts and congratulations to Janx managing to snag a spot on the T50. It’s definitely not a last place when so many sets fell out of T50.
Congrats to everyone who voted as well! It wasn’t easy this time and I’m happy that sheer dedication and friendship can make a man read god-knows-how-many ficticious video game design documents.

Personally, I’m glad that I managed to place pretty well with Constance. I’m happy to have gone all out on Fire Emblem: Three Houses and she’s really a testament to what you can achieve when you love a game and want to do it justice. I’m glad this was a Fire Emblem-y contest and I’m glad to be the proud owner of the second-highest placing FE set ever, and the highest placing set since MYM6. If I had a nickel for every time I had the second-highest placing set of a Nintendo A-list series I’d have two nickels which is pretty neat.

Overall, I’m excited to see what’s next! This death-defying derring-do rag tag bunch is an absolute blessing and I’m happy to be there. I have high hopes for next contest!

Personally, I am going into this anniversary edition with a strategy and a healthy competitive spirit. By condensing my effort into sets with a powerful premise, I’m hoping to make a mark and make voting even harder for all of you next time. I’m hoping to hold myself to my lofty promises by telling you my set plans.

Mrs. Quackfaster (Estimated complete date: Opening Day)
Opening day is a bit of a leap of faith, but I‘d rather not post-pone this set until May so Opening Day is as good a day as any. (But it could be anywhere between April, May and June as well.)
If Constance used all of the buffalo of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Quackfaster is here to harness my knowledge of the media empire that is the Scrooge McDuck brand. Comics, video games, and tv series are all archived and represented to make a set that is, similar to Constance, a love letter to something I really love.

Gyro Gearloose (Estimated complete date: August)
One thing that worked for me was writing during the summer holidays. The sea breeze sets in my creativity and the burning sun with a barely functioning airconditioning, as well as the feeling of throwing away my chance to make memories makes me weirdly productive. Cuttlefish and Constance were both written in the summers of their respective sets, and Gyro is following suit.
Gyro Gearloose is a bit of an odd one in that I have no idea how stupidly deep I might go as far as concepting, but I still putting down all my chips on him. Hence the big gap between Quackfaster and Gyro.
What I do know is that it’ll feature race cars, lasers, aeroplanes. You know the trick.

Master Kohga (Estimated complete date: Dodongo)
I had this one on my list for a few contests now, but he always felt a bit weird to take on. His power set in Age of Calamity, consisting of minions, projectiles and meters, felt too oddly MYM to give a unique spin to and writing him felt cynical. Now, I want to embrace that meta-commentary cheesiness by making the best darnest boulder set from him there is. Fitting him into my schedule might be weird. I could see myself jotting down a set for him in a few weeks, but I could also see myself get caught up in other things and delay him once again. Time will tell.

I hope to be there for JamCons to butt into the contemporary conversation with things like a Yu-Gi-Oh and FGO set in a new series called “WCF ruins things you like.” Also Cataquack.

 

[GolisoPower]

Big congrats to everybody that participated! And an even BIGGER congrats to everyone that made the Top 10, too! Kupa, you did an amazing job with your Walter White set getting 1st Place! You could say you, heh, cooked up a good set there!

And to the people here that have improved like dilliam, Torgo, and Janx, good on you and I hope you guys keep improving!

This felt like a much better contest for me, allowing me to explore more facets and pushing more boundaries both for myself and Smash Ultimate as a game. I also owe it to Sakurai for giving us characters that have also pushed boundaries and given us characters like Kazuya and Sora to give us loads more ideas to pick from! I'm also happy that Creature and Passionlip made the Top 50, I thought that the former would be a hit, but I'm surprised about the latter! But I'm not done! This MYM 25, I'm gonna take what I've learned here and am going to ascend even further! Some sets I've been wanting to make and hope to release include but aren't limited to:

WOLF WITCH VERONICA

Poison Witch Lucrezia was my first dip of the toe into the Witchverse, and I want to continue adding to it with the protagonist of the game the mafia boss came from! Veronica will be a particular character who has a wild side to her in battle, but you'll have to wait before you find out what it is~!

ELDLICH THE GOLDEN LORD

I had very little knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! aside watching a few episodes as a kid. But now I feel my knowledge has expanded thanks to Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel and I've found my perfect deck in the form of what is basically Yu-Gi-Oh!'s answer to Gilgamesh! I'm ready to apply my knowledge hard with this!

OURO KRONII

Bubby led the charge with a first this contest: a Hololive set! Ever since then, I've been wanting to make a set for one of the ladies myself, but I had never had the time to figure out who...until HoloCouncil got revealed, and Kronii stole my heart. So if I get around to her, I want to do her as much justice as I can!

See you in the next contest everyone! The fact that our next is the 25th is commemorative, so I say we pull out all the stops, even more than we did before!

 

[n88]

Congrats to the winners and nice work, everyone! I'll have to make sure I catch up on the high-placers I haven't read yet.

 

[Rychu]

Congrats to everyone! All of your placements were deserving and many deserved much more, had it been any other contest.

 

[Slavic]

 

[BKupa666]

Oh, man, this contest. Up until reading really got underway in earnest, there seemed to be this sentiment of MYM24 being dead not living up to its predecessor contest. While one could still make that case in terms of the ceiling for top set quality, the sheer depth of the high-level set pool was truly something to behold. Many of us have opened up about just how hard it was to piece together votelists with brilliant sets that, while surefire SVs in any other contest, had to earn their keep to stay in RV, or even WV. Ninety (mostly) serious submissions and a dozen voters in a moveset-writing competition that dates back to -2007- is nothing to sneeze at. Between the passion projects, joint sets, Jamcons and everything else, MYM feels as healthy as it's ever been, and if people deliver on even just a portion of what they've previewed so far, MYM25 will be one for the history books, too.

Multiple aspects of this Top 50 came as a surprise to me, and largely pleasantly so. When I got through Slavic 's Kaiba in late January, I was enamored and considered him about on par with U UserShadow7989 's Pegasus, but fretted that he came too late in the contest to build up the same sort of voting momentum. Turns out the figurative student — on account of the former's inspiration from the latter — not only ended up surpassing the teacher, with both retaining well-earned Top 5 spots, but the two also contributed to a fun Yu-Gi-Oh presence within the Top 10 in tandem with Katapultar 's Ferrijit. For another, I had high hopes for Trafalgar Law, as a stellar pseudo-cage concept that held onto one of my SV spots since my initial read, and to see others concur and award Rychu his well-deserved first Top 10 placement was a treat. It's that sort of rise that offers a glimpse at what could lie in store for those whose works didn't place this time, like dilliam , Torgo the Bear and wizfoot , but nevertheless have shown a ton of promise across their efforts. And then, I was pleased to see WeirdChillFever 's Constance, bubbyboytoo 's Calliope, Almand 's Hugo and Junahu 's Pete and Kactuar secure solid placements up and down the list, lending to a Top 50 all the more reflective of MYM's lovely diversity among individual setmaking/writing approaches. To that end, though regrettably a late cut from my own votes, I was quite happy to see Janx_uwu 's Morshu land a placement, given the promise shown in its centerpiece Specials.

For the record, I made three Top 50 bets before the vote totals were revealed — that all 10 of Kat's sets would place; that Jamcon winner placements would be ordered Belzeb > Catarina > Gareth > Cookie Scouts; and the Top 10 would include sets from all of leadership plus ForwardArrow , @Smash Daddy, Rychu and WCF. Two out of three ain't bad, especially when Constance was right on that threshold as is.

Looking over the final vote numbers, I also was struck by the range of different tastes across individual vote lists. In a contest with 12 voters, nine different sets received Super Vote Pluses, including seven of the ultimate Top 10. Super Votes were even more varied and extended down as far as 44th, with GolisoPower 's Passionlip (an underrated favorite of mine among his robust nine-set output). Clearly, I wish Gawain had garnered more momentum among FrozenRoy 's MYM24 solo library — though I definitely see why Morgan stood out from the crowd, this fairy knight blended a brilliant overarching melee focus, with her feast-or-famine Survival of the Fittest mechanic, and perhaps the most compelling implementation of attack copying I can imagine. At least KOS-MOS nabbed third, hopefully a nice motivator for partner Smady to take a stab at more solo works in MYM25 (though perhaps another joint or two could be in the cards?). Similarly, I had an outsized appreciation for Yin Manacuff among Kat's works, and for Kholdstare 's Green Goblin, for their strong takes on controllable movement paths, respectively via selective grounded and free-form aerial movement. These sorts of cases, where my opinions veer more bullish than the group consensus, are welcome instances for me to reflect on how I evaluate different aspects of movesets — perhaps more weighted toward Specials, mechanics and characterization — and conversely, think over where I maybe ought to give more consideration to other factors, depth of melee among them, that seem to lend to some diverging preferences.

In terms of my own library, I was pleased with the spontaneity I had in pursuing sets for each of the different characters. Back in the day, a big part of me becoming distant after MYM13 had to do with a dearth of ideas for characters I was passionate about interpreting. With the exception of Walter White, I hadn't considered sets for any of my other characters until shortly before I actually sat down to get writing, inspired by one or two central ideas that started bouncing in my head (and fundamentally, that same occurrence was why I dusted off seven-year-old concepts for him, too). It's a personally satisfying testament to how creativity can spark at any time, and hopefully in such a way that sparks joy in others as they see the characters done justice.

Syndrome originated from Discord discussion of Pixar villain sets, and once I realized, hey, the Omnidroid he relies on so heavily in canon could be downsized for gameplay purposes, I jumped at the chance to play around that with flawed regular attacks. Whereas I'd probably struggle to keep pace with melee on a conventionally heroic character, I feel in my element approaching those that are some combo of scheming, showboating, raging or prone to overextension — descriptors that fit Syndrome to a 't' with him blasting past opponents while fleeing or clapping to bait foes with a delayed energy burst. Then, with both Dixie and Popinski, characters who in some universe could ever get into Smash, I put more focus than usual on designing them such that they could actually work there without much concession. For Dixie, I felt compelled to take a stab at her before Ultimate DLC ended, on the off chance I could compare how my take compared with the official one. She blossomed into a love letter to DKC and the spitfire Dixie for Smash community that has churned out great for her over the years. Partnering her with DKC3 co-star Kiddy appeared to be a recurring MYM idea, which I was happy to meld in optional fashion with a standalone set. And then, early last year, I had a nostalgic period of going back and watching Punch-Out!! speedruns, upon which it baffled me that no one in MYM had taken a serious stab at Popinski to the point where I eventually wanted to remedy that. Popinski to my knowledge is the first Punch-Out!! set since Little Mac himself joined the fray, so I had fun inverting his mechanics as a series boss could use them, baking in the same sort of power and vulnerability without being at the cost of a fully functional kit.

Onto Walter White himself, I can't say just how much it means to me that people wound up enjoying him to the extent where he could actually win the contest. I try and approach all of my sets with an aim of including at least something for everyone reading to enjoy, based on how they experience Smash, and Walt's clean SV sweep seems to reflect a success on my part, which is utterly fulfilling. A big part of why I felt briefly bummed at Mysterio missing Top 3 last time was a sense, echoed in a few contest retrospectives, that he could represent my high-water mark, tough to top. Recognizing that it's a privilege to place in any capacity, let alone win, Bowser Jr.'s MYM9 victory is hard for me to look back on with much pride, when he only won via tiebreaker and is far removed from my current style. Now, by notching a win in modern MYM, I feel as though I've scratched an itch, completed an arc of sorts in returning to and reinventing my sensibilities within the competition series I so loved as a teenager, after trying and falling flat with Skowl and Petey. And with Walter White of all characters? What?! I'm not sure whether he's my best set to date qualitatively, I know some would still give Mysterio that title, but I'm perhaps most pleased with him as an overall package. There was a period of weeks last summer where I would fall asleep to episodes of Breaking Bad, one of my all-time favorite series, over which time I finally posited, hey, what if the villain protagonist motivated by pride and perfectionism had to navigate those same stumbling blocks in Smash, making meth around a bevy of other chemicals that would play into his stale moves? That, plus deciding to epitomize Fly in recovery form, was the moment I knew I had enough to resuscitate my graveyard ideas for Walt, and I'm over the moon that I did. While I'm not going to stop swinging for the fences, if no other sets of mine reach Walt's level before my time in MYM comes to an end, I'll walk away fully content.

From the sounds of things in chat, a number of folks seem to be cooking up some rather tasty opening day or early sets for MYM25, so I'll continue to champ at the bit to see what's coming up next. With the first Jamcon already set up and leadership poised to further incentivize earlier reading and commenting, I think we're on track for another explosive installment. Make Your Move in its quadranscentennial contest, 15 years later, who'd have thunk it?

 

[Slavic]

“Anyone who’s late to the Top 50 will be disqualified.
Mokuba, make sure Taylor’s late.”

Thank you everyone for coming together to make the first officially dead Make Your Move an overwhelming success! THere’s a lot to say about this Top 50 and this contest in general, so buckle up for a long post (unless I get bored of writing it). This has been a wonderful year for a lot of people’s setwork, and it shines through with the most competitive Top 50 I think I’ve seen in a contest.

First off, I have not really made a formal acknowledgement of my rise to leadership following Smady’s stepping down. It’s been a position I’ve been eyeing ever so slightly for a while (not Smady’s specific position) but really wasn’t something I thought I was overly qualified for. I was filling in big shoes left behind by both Smady and FA’s absences on leadership, with nothing higher than a placement of 7th and only two Top 10 sets in my career. Needless to say, those fears and doubts have definitely subsided after what is unequivocally my best contest yet, despite the fierce competition (or I guess I was the fierce competition, sorry everyone).

Leadership has been a topic of much thought by non-leaders (and leaders as well, I’m sure!). In my time in MYM, the role of leadership has varied dramatically depending on the contest and leadership, from the days of needing a leader invite to the Skype chat to leaders heavily guiding set opinions to now, where leaders take a more clerical and supportive role. It’s only in the more recent changes that the position became interesting to me, tying in well with my increased knowledge of Smash Bros. and set quality. I do want to take a bit more of an active role in leadership, wanting to keep on top of both MYMers and fellow leaders to keep reading and commenting actively throughout the contest instead of stockpiled at the end outside of a handful of much-appreciated outliers.


I want to start by congratulating all the Top 10 sets for incredible work at placing in such a stiff competition. Walter White took home the gold, I don’t think to anyone’s surprise really. Walt does great at justifying a full-on playground set by supplementing it with a really clever melee game, getting a ton of mileage out of basically every aspect of the set and without relying on a ‘meth addiction’ mechanic. Walter White is a moveset many people looked at and said ‘this is the set that will win 24’ before even reading the competition. He’s stylish, unique, iconic, and tightly written. This is a well-deserved win to break the longest dry streak MYM has seen!

I felt relatively confident I would breach Top 10 this contest. I felt my improvement since Mami last contest and despite the competition my sets stayed high in rankings as reading continued. I never expected to land second place, however! I’ll save more detailed talk about Kaiba until later, but for a set I wasn’t originally going to finish he went above and beyond my expectations. In a competition this fierce, Kaiba proves there is value in being consistent if not being the best, soaking up 10 SVs and 0 SV+ to take home the silver.

KOS-MOS in 3rd place makes me smile, a set that I very much enjoyed that just got eked out at the end, something everyone experienced this contest without doubt. It was great to see a joint set go so far, and was a really brilliant way for Smady to keep his foot in the door even with real life smothering him from setwork. Of course, Smady was only half the story and Froy really pulled KOS-MOS together in the nick of time to ensure she got such a warm reception. And finally Muno’s dastardly Rex set has been shoved off the highest Xeno throne. Just know I’m eyeing that Xeno seat as you read this.

Morgan was the set who stole my SV+ after a painful amount of deliberation, so I’m glad she came out in the Top 5 even without winning. Morgan carries the FrozenRoy impeccable melee game along with some really clever reworking of Gareth’s Critical Stars mechanic and even a streamlined Warp Gate which makes her sound very appealing to imagine! I don’t think any franchise has had a better contest before than Fate in MYM24, and Morgan is the pinnacle of them all.

If I had my dithers about it, I would place Kaiba in 5th and Pegasus in 2nd. It’s beautifully fitting that the creator and the master clashed against each other so well in this contest, honestly one of my favorite things about this contest in general, but Pegasus had a decent chunk more going for him in my eyes, and thought he was an easy 2nd or 3rd place. He has a more cohesive theme with the Toons, he’s got his set cards, I came away from reading Pegasus wishing I had started Kaiba in a different way. Good thing I didn’t, I suppose, but regardless Pegasus is an excellent set and could easily be considered the best Yu-Gi-Oh! set in MYM history depending on where you’re sitting.

Belzeb takes a more than respectable sixth place, though would not have been a shock to see in the Top 5 at all. Belzeb seems to miss the mark for a few people but I think was the strongest entry out of the FA lineup and earned a high demand SV from me. Belzeb’s done astonishingly well for a Jamcon set, as competitive a set as any, and really cements the skill FA carries even outside of a leadership setting. Another in a line of extreme concept characters from the Arrow himself.

Tri-Brigade Ferrejit may not have been my absolute favorite Kat set this contest, but she was definitely my second favorite! Both her and Catarina rely on the power of friendship to overcome Smash Bros., Ferrejit instead relying on her comrades on the front line for offense, protection, and support through their projectile redirection. She’s a very cool set to be sure and absolutely Top 10 material, even if she pushed my girl Catarina out of the way to do so.

FA pops up with another T10 placer in Fairy Knight Tristan, a set I wasn’t quite as blown away by as everyone else was. At no point did I ever think Tristan was a bad set, however, as she’s got a lot going on with her multitude of curses. Grimalkin was one of my favorite move concepts in general this contest, and it’s great to see the ideas were appreciated widely.

The first set of the contest was not the worst, Syndrome starting the contest with a bang! The Omnidroid is one of the best fleshed out AI parts of a set I’ve seen, possibly the best, and has such care in the details around it. Syndrome himself is no slouch with a bevy of interesting ideas throughout that made the set a joy to read. If the Omnidroid hadn’t been quite so polarizingly strong, or if Syndrome had been posted like one contest ago, he would have done even better, but ninth place in a stacked contest is still really good.

Rounding out the Top 10 is Law, a set I was very glad to see make it on! Rychu’s big Top 10 entrance with a succinct set gave itself some Room this contest, and an amazing burst of performance after such a brief return following last contest. Law proves that a set doesn’t have to be 20 thousand, 30 thousand… 40 thousand words to be truly excellent, and makes for an exciting final placement for the Top 10.


Next, I’d like to address everyone personally. Kupa got a big victory this contest with Walter White, of course, and a second T10 entry with Syndrome, but even beyond that Kupa had a great contest experience. Diddy Kong and Soda Popinski were both solid, very competitive sets that helped round out Kupa’s unique lineup this time around. Kupa has earned this long awaited victory and shown off some incredible chops after such a long absence, truly cementing him as a legendary setmaker. I’ve also done some thinking lately and I feel like Kupa’s return to MYM coincides very strongly with higher profile characters getting sets overall, something that’s quite nice to see but also could be coincidence / not actually a thing at all.

Junahu made an unexpected reappearance this contest, and while he only dropped one set in the thread (really four, though!) his work in updating all of his movesets onto Google Docs is incredibly commendable and not an easy task! Kactuar and Pete both placed, a testament that Junahu still knows what makes MYM tick, and it’s not an exaggeration to say MYM’s overall interest in set extras spiked after Kactuar was posted. He may not have been overly active in the actual contest or Discord, but he had a pretty major impact on the contest nonetheless.

Smash Daddy, my direct predecessor now, had an unfortunate time with real life taking precedent over serious MYM work. I know it must have been painful for him as well, with Smady being one of the most active commenters Make Your Move has seen historically. I already mentioned it, but the joint set strategy was a great way to keep you on the board despite the complications, and hopefully you’ll be able to circle back around to finish Wapol at some point. It’ll be a while before I feel comfortable sitting where you sat, you’ve had quite a legacy in MYM!

Khold has been maybe the most influential member of the community in the long while, deserving massive props for dropping the Jamcon concept on us out of nowhere. It’s not the first time a similar concept has been done, as we’ve had the JOE! challenges and Froy’s Iron MYMer, but neither of them ever seemed to explode in the same way Jamcons have. Of course, you also put out 5 sets of your own and a team-up with bubby. While set quality was a little all over the board I don’t think anyone’s going to complain about getting sets like Gobs and Benny, two which were quite fun reads this contest! It’s also good to see strong bonds forming between setmakers, as you and bubby have kept a good energy up this contest.

UserShadow has exploded in quality in the past few contests, and he really managed to unlock the secret to MYM. Pegasus has been discussed already, but would like to reiterate that he’s a massive character choice that could have easily been too much to bite off for a lot of people. A hugely inspirational set to finishing my Kaiba set, a great secret santa set as well! Cid was a welcome surprise as well, a fun set that people had a lot of good to say about which was posted tragically before we understood the caliber of contest this would be. Marin was a set I adored and while others may not have been as big on it, I was very happy to see her get as high a placement as she did. Fitting considering what a huge impact she’s had on your MYM career in general. I would be remiss not to mention the Stooges, a massive undertaking with a respectable placement, though I know they were a place of retrospection and growth for you after writing.

You were also part of the noble heroes who bust out a set for every single Jamcon, and all but Kingman.EXE ended up placing. Kingman might not have been my favorite set, one who was definitely held back by the Jamcon limit, but was far from a bad set. Honchkrow, Hopper, and especially Enya just managed to do a lot more with what they were given, and four sets is four sets no matter the placement! On top of all the Jamcons, you also got Fruity Yummy Mummy out for FA Day, proving yourself a reliable workhorse for setwork.

As the only other one of your sets that didn’t place, I do want to give Roxanne a shoutout nonetheless. Roxanne was perhaps my least favorite of your entire contest’s output when I first read her, a shame because she had a lot of potential in her. Post edits, she shot up my rankings, from mid 50 range to mid 70 range. Tragically, she remained just out of voting range but I do want to give a shout out for Roxanne taking her commentary to heart and turning her into a more than decent set.

Speaking of MYM powerhouses, Katapultar has shown to be an unstoppable force in nearly every contest and this one is no exception. 10 sets, all of which placed! Ferrejit and Catarina were strong entries, Catarina being my preferred choice but both doing well and Ferrejit taking home a deserved T10 placement. You continue to have the most esoteric roster of movesets, featuring other MYMers’ original universes, slice of life anime I’ve not heard of, and Pokemon fangames. Joint sets have also seemed quite popular lately, and Raikou was an excellent set, despite being one of the last ones I read with a lot to compare to her.

Yin was a set I know quite a few people enjoyed, and to be sure he was very ambitious and had a lot of good in him! I primarily just found he fell into some old Kat trappings of flying too close to the sun. Yin stockpiles more and more effects and interactions, turning him into a daunting lad with a lot more to keep in mind while reading the set than the average boy. Lucille was a set I had hoped to see place better, as she was quite a pleasant surprise to read through! Asagao received a revamped set which I feel much improved on her old and really came into itself, Niva gave us a very unique Pokemon set and ended up being your most ninja-esque set out of the many ninjas you made. Even at the bottom of the placements, Ritsu and Hotaru both ended up with some really neat ideas both that I’d like to see repurposed, or just blatantly steal for my own sets. All in all, incredibly solid output and glad to hear you consider this your best contest yet, it really does show.

Rychu made a nice returning debut last contest, and seeing him stick around was very nice. What was completely unexpected was him turning around and giving us Trafalgar Law, an innovative take on an old MYM idea that really earned its T10 spot! Like I said earlier, it’s great to see a shorter set really take off. Getting some Jamcon sets out with Jackie Chan and Nihiloor was great to see too, even without placement, and it makes me wonder what the future will bring for you.

Retirement doesn’t suit ForwardArrow, and this contest definitely proves it. Two T10 sets in Belzeb and Tristan is a strong output on its own. I’ve talked about both sets already, but it bears repeating. Belzeb is a great super-heavyweight with compelling mechanic in moonsickness, and one of those insane Jamcon entries that was out for blood. Tristan also had a compelling set, very similar in quality to Belzeb and only coming out a hair behind (I am definitely a bit responsible for that, oops). And of course, rounding it out is W shortly behind in 11th, a set I still feel was a little underrated but did get pushed out by competition hard. Oh, and we did have Tristan Taylor to complete the trifecta of phenomenal duelist sets minus the phenomenal part. Additionally, you were another of the most active readers and commenters during the contest itself, something we definitely needed, and a habit I hope we can all return to as a whole.

Good news, FrozenRoy! You didn’t come in second place this time! Jokes aside, you put out an excellent contest with some real heavy hitters. The only MYMer to take home two Top 5 spots between both your joint with Smady on KOS-MOS and your brilliant Morgan, you remain a force to be reckoned with despite the competition. I’ve talked about KOS-MOS twice now, so I just want to throw out that you did a great job at pulling KOS-MOS together at the end and getting her polished up for the contest’s finale. Morgan ended up being my personal favorite set of the contest so thank goodness she ended up in the Top 5, otherwise that would have just been embarrassing. I also already talked about your other joint set with Kat, Raikou, who felt like an improved extension on Byleth in every way.

Hubert was a strong entry in a good contest for Fire Emblem and a better way to start the contest off than Slaking. Slaking himself was not terrible by any means, and had a fun idea between switching active and lazy mode, but Hubert felt a lot more in line with your skills and in general had a lot more character. After that, Froy entered Fate Mode, giving us a Jamcon dominating Gareth set and Fairy Knight Gawain who I know did not perform up to your expectations. She’s good, but I think Gareth, Raikou, and especially Morgan simply excelled past her.

I want to give a shoutout to Froy for being one of the most active members in the community, both a wonderful chat presence, great person for reaching out to, and also keeping everyone on track with reading. I don’t think we would have the same number of voters without your concerted effort to get people to catch up and it’s very appreciated. I also want to say you should knock out some of your dodongos and get them into respectable sets, ya leaving a trail of unfinished babies behind you each contest!

WeirdChillFever had his most productive contest since MYM20, and Constance definitely outshone Kilton in quality if not in placement. She’s an extremely fun take on a Fire Emblem set that really encapsulated your love for Three Houses and got the gears turning on further anime swordfighter sets. I will say it’s kind of a shame that none of your other three sets placed, as I thought all were competent and better than some of the sets that did place in my opinion. Naganadel definitely didn’t receive a warm reception, in part due to some obtuse mechanics, but did have some cool ideas going on and was a unique direction to take the Pokemon. Daisy was great if nothing else but for the meme, and her form of stage control to emulate League of Legends was a neat idea. And Rockerduck and Jeeves was a solid entry for a Jamcon who definitely should have gotten a little more credit.

While he didn’t bust out the same 12 set goliath of a contest he did in 23, Goliso still had an enviably productive contest this time around. On top of that, both the Creature and Passionlip placed in an insanely competitive contest, showing your ability to try new things and experiment with ideas. 24 showed the same kind of experimental nature as your 23 output, leading to extreme examples with characters like Shin Godzilla and Red, and with some more tempered ones such as your Fate selection and the Creature. It was also interesting to see your foray into the Witchverse, something which seems to have taken to with your plans for Veronica. You did an excellent job participating in every Jamcon this contest and you’ve shown considerable growth since last contest, with your reading and voting having a clear contribution to your evolution. Keep up the great work, as your sets always have something interesting to say about them.

bubby continues to come into his own more and more every contest, with basically every set dropped now feeling like a complete fleshed out package. Calliope stole the show here, and rightfully so, as she’s done the best job of all of your sets at combining your really sound writing style with more experimental ideas. Calliope feels like the natural evolution from Polterkitty and Cyclohm, and regardless of placement definitely came together better than them as well. It was also great to see you come through almost all of the Jamcons, even taking one of them home with the fun Cookie Scouts. You and Khold’s work I’ve already discussed in his section, but once again it’s great to see two MYMers come together with things like the Science Team and the Tainted Forgotten. I also want to extend an acknowledgement for you regarding as extras, as you are the other half of the guard along with random Junahu reboot that’s kept the exotic extras alive and well. Eventually I’ll do my Runes, I promise! Seeing members take different parts of MYM seriously always adds a sense of life to the community, and you’ve also done great at finding us some great resources from time to time.

Almand was a great surprise the last few contests, coming in with way more knowledge about Smash and fighting games than a decent amount of the community. I think for a lot of us MYM led to a higher understanding of Smash, not the opposite, so it’s always fun to see someone so pre-qualified step up. You may have only had Hugo out this time around but he definitely stood out, soaking up a respectable 31st place. Ditto did outplace Hugo but I think it was a combination of stronger competition and that Hugo is a far more grounded set than the whimsical Ditto. Either way, we are definitely glad to have you and are excited to see what you’ll cook up in MYM 25!

dilliam, you may not have placed this contest but Teridax was a massive improvement over 23’s output, and I don’t think too many people would have been surprised had he placed in the 40-50 range under a normal contest’s circumstances. Really the best advice that can be given to improve is just write and read more sets! Getting those reps in will make you a stronger set maker, and more importantly you’ll get a lot of sets under your belt just for the numbers!

Janx_uwu, you are something of an enigma, popping up to post a set and then vanish like a ghost in the night. It’s great to see Morshu place in this contest, a fun base for a set off of an unorthodox character that feels right at home in MYM. My only recommendation right now would be to engage with the community more, hop in the Discord more actively and take to more reading and commenting of sets. We’d love to see more of you!

Torgo, you’ve been great to have around in your second contest in a row, even without any placement yet. And I wouldn’t say you’re too far off, either, as both Gamora and especially the Mads demonstrated the kind of creative thinking that MYM rewards. You really just need to work on the ‘homework’ part of it, building up your sets with a stronger knowledge of the game, which best comes with reading, playing, and researching Smash’s finer details. You’ve also just been a great person to have around for your interest and excitement in the more whimsical parts of movesetting, like future plans and extras!

Our newest official member of the crew, wizfoot is as shiny as they come, entering your first contest in 24. No need to be disparaged or worried about not getting votes this time around, consider this an orientation contest. Of your four sets, I find Spike the best of them all, showcasing a lot of love for the character with also I think the most MYMian of them in terms of execution. RIght now you just have to make more sets and read more sets! I know you’ve got plenty up your sleeve for next contest, so you’re off to a solid start.

n88 is another exciting return this contest, though he may not have gotten any sets out this time around. In fact, that might be what makes it so exciting he took to reading and commenting later into 24! I know you’ve got plans for the next contest all sorted out, so it’ll be real exciting to see another veteran rejoining the fray.

Next, it’s time to talk about my favorite subject: me! This contest blew me out of the water, but I also dealt my share of blows to it… or something. My first set of this contest was Shigaraki, started back when there was talk of a MYM movement for BnHA villains. I ended up being the only one to show up, though I will read Overhaul before I die, I swear it. Shigaraki actually started as a moveset for Nomu, who would be supported in the background by Kurogiri and Shigaraki’s combined efforts. This evolved into the opposite, and for the best as I think Shigaraki’s melee game ended up more interesting than Nomu’s would have alone.

Shigaraki ended up getting overshadowed this contest, an unfortunate side effect of getting released at the very beginning of such an intense contest. I do think Shigaraki ended up much clunkier than intended, especially for a character intended to be fast and aggressive. Pulling Nomu out, taking control of him, and the Warp Gate controls all were a bit unintuitive, and other duo sets like Syndrome and Diddy handled the extra fighter better, while Morgan really took off with a Warp Gate-like mechanic. Still, for a long period Shigaraki was my only competitive set, even through the Jamcons, so I had to put my faith in him.

I went through a long dry spell in 24 until Khold came along and introduced the idea of Jamcons. I figured I’d give it some thought but really didn’t anticipate getting one out (let alone three!). A Fire Emblem set ended up making the most sense for me, able to get a lot out of a character without feeling like I ‘wasted’ a potentially good character-choice. Lyn ended up being the very first Jamcon set ever posted, a badge I’ll happily wear even if not the best Jamcon set by a longshot. Froy really ended up liking her so it certainly wasn’t a bust, and 36 is a solid placement for me even still. I got to experiment with a stored projectile adding a lot to the moveset, something that ended up being similar to other movesets in the contest like Cid or Tristan, and got to incorporate my recent BlazBlue experience into a moveset.

My next Jamcon set was Tumble, the actual perfect choice for a Chance Time set. My goal with Tumble was two-fold: first, I wanted to incorporate as much RNG as I could while I also trying to keep some semblance of balance. The inspiration came from Faust in Guilty Gear, who tosses a random item into the air that becomes relevant as it comes back down. Incorporating this idea of a random outcome having a delay so both players can react was the main idea through Tumble, most notable with moves like Dice Block and Jab. Second, I wanted to enter the same fugue state I was in while writing Exeggcute last contest. This was a rousing success. It’s my favorite kind of set to write, as uncompetitive as they are, simply letting train of thought guide the moveset without concern for cohesion or pulling back on ideas. Tumble may not have placed but I’d like to think he lives rent-free in everyone’s mind nonetheless.

My final Jamcon set, Magneto, was hindered a bit by my difficulty in picking a character for influence. It helped I had ideas for Magneto in the past as one of my more wanted-to-make sets, but was also a set that could have used a full development cycle. I actually was surprised at the poorer reception for Magneto at release, as he was a set I thought very strongly was my best Jamcon and possibly on par with Shigaraki. Even if this didn’t end up being the case, I quite enjoyed writing Magneto and working in as many references to my favorite film series as possible. I consider Magneto a personal success if nothing else, and am glad he placed at all this contest.

After Jamcons, I ended up finding the sudden motivation to bust out an important trinity of sets. The first of these was Madoka, who I started initially because she had been the only of the Holy Quintet without a set. Following Kyoko and Mami the previous two contests, it only made sense to figure a way to bring her to life. The initial pitch I gave to Froy was a set which revolved around ‘ending the foe’s suffering’. This ended up being a much smaller part of the set, as Madoka began to incorporate as much of the series as I could with as much style I could muster.

The end result here was my personal favorite moveset of the contest, as well as my personal favorite moveset I’ve ever written. Every idea I had with Madoka came to life in full, one of very few times I don’t feel like I left any money on the table. She was very experimental and a bit confrontational in design, directly inspired conceptually from Master Xehanort a few contests ago, and ended up soaking up a wide variety of votes across the board. 13th place is nothing I’ll complain about, but I do still end up more satisfied with her set than either Mami or Kaiba above her.

Claire was the last set I started working on, as the ideas for her came from playing Resident Evil 2 Remake for the first time, and Resident Evil in general. It was her grenade launcher that ended up being the main inspiration for the set, one of my favorite weapons I’ve used in a video game. Like Tumble, I set out to challenge a tricky MYM subject with Claire, this time ammo and limited items. Banjo and Hero were decent inspiration, but most of Claire came about with the commentary I’ve seen and received around the mechanics in MYM.

Claire also had some of my strongest gamesense in my opinion. I dedicated time to learn how different elements of Smash worked rather than just raw melee combos, trying to focus on how zoning characters set up traps and what those rewards are. Claire ended up being a set I’m quite proud of, and landed in a decent spot ranking-wise. Personally, I would rank her above Shigaraki but I also understand her moveset isn’t quite as exciting or punchy as his, being more of a technical piece than a fun one (not even any extras in her yet!).

My final moveset of the contest ended up being the most important for me in Seto Kaiba. Kaiba came about as a combination of thinking it weird we didn’t have a Kaiba moveset yet and the release of Kaiba for Jump Force (which I’ve never played but whatever). The idea of treating Kaiba’s main monsters like stands came directly from Jump Force, but the ability to position them around the stage to displace his Smashes was an evolution from Shigaraki’s Warp Gate. Spells and Traps came naturally, PaniK had previously used support cards before and making them context-sensitive was a fun way to build in synergy while also having some unique options with the Trap Cards.

I came to a dead end while working on Kaiba’s Smashes, a gauntlet of 12 entirely unique moves that influenced Kaiba’s gameplay. It wasn’t until the release of Pegasus that I was convinced Kaiba was worth finishing and got back to work on his Smashes. Progress slowed down yet again once I got to his standards, as I felt he was just a worse version of Pegasus as Pegasus could set all of his attack monsters as traps. The final puzzle piece was giving Kaiba the fighting game combo mechanic. This allowed him a different way of working around his unwieldy attacks than Pegasus’ monster-setting mechanic, and felt more in line with Kaiba’s method of overwhelming the opponent with force. It also allowed Kaiba some even laggier attacks that had a huge benefit of landing them by shrinking that painful endlag.

The Command Aerial was actually one of the earlier concepts I had, which popped up shortly after deciding all of Kaiba’s standards would be monster summons. The Grab Game was a lot weirder before, having Roland appear to grab the foe for the entire move instead of just on a throw. The subtle change gave Kaiba an important OoS option and still retained the bizarre and fun Roland throw. Kaiba’s Grab Game honestly became my favorite section of his moveset, and definitely a strong way to end the set. While Madoka was my favorite of my input, it’s not a huge surprise that Kaiba took off in people’s eyes and I still am blown away that he ran away with second place.


With the Top 10, the community, and my own movesets covered, it’s time to get to my favorite part of any contest: previews! Even if they’re a cheap way to generate hype for the next contest, it’s still real hype to see and are generally nice to have around for posterity in my book. Priority here is an indicator of how much work or conceptualization has been completed on the character, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, I'm still keeping some things close to my chest.

High Priority

Mid Priority

Low Priority​

With all said and done, I'll see you all on March 10th for the start of our big 25th anniversary! ​

 

[n88]

I don't have a big retrospective as a latecomer, but I always have a hard time resisting the urge to get excited about planning stuff. So I figured I'd share my own WIP stuff, lumped into tiers of descending probability that I'll deliver.

The Broken Vessel is technically not a certainty because I live within a couple blocks of a bus station and could be mowed down at any time. But the set's already in the can, so 'posting it later' feels pretty achievable, as goals go.

Akechi is the first set I started working on after I started hanging around the Discord, but he's taken me a bit longer than I hoped; my goals for the set have shifted over time, but I'm hoping he'll turn out stronger for all the TLC. Pokey is something I signed up for during some chatter about a Mario enemy movement - a character I've tackled before, so technically a remix (though I don't particularly remember the old one). Hilda is one where I've really just got Specials mapped out and some mechanical notes, but she's a character I want to realize something for, so she's relatively high priority.

This is the 'shower thoughts' tier; I have some notes or at the very least some strong inclinations, but whether or not I execute on those is a bit of a crapshoot.

I've elected not to include joint sets in these little icons, which comes with two advantages: I've been chatting with Froy about some stuff where we haven't quite nailed down the scope of what we're doing, and also it spares me the indignity of having to spend time in pixlr with Shadow the Hedgehog.

 

[bubbyboytoo]

<- music (click)
As one of them newfangled up-and-comers you guys are so excited about these days, I think I'm proud to call this contest my best so far. First in terms of set quality, of course; while Calliope Mori didn't pull the same raw numbers as Cyclohm and Polterkitty in the Top 50, that's almost certainly because everyone else pulled out all the stops as well for what I'm told is one of the most competitive contests in MYM history. A well-suited introduction of the world of VTubers to MYM, she marks both me falling headfirst off the slippery slope into waifu 'culture' and my first meaningful addition to the collaborative story mode planning I love so much. That's half of my love for MYM in the first place, those insane crossovers that nobody could ever come up with in a vacuum. She and Cid made an excellent pair of straight men for the wackos they found themselves surrounded by and honestly I kinda ship them

On the other half of it is my increased participation in the community; it's no coincidence that I really started ramping up the whole thing at the start of last year! The Science Team and Tainted Forgotten were both born from a rather unexpected friendship with Kholdstare thanks to our mutual interests (he's an excellent person to bounce ideas off of!) and I also started following ForwardArrow around in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a lost puppy. He's brutally honest without coming across as a jackass, can acknowledge easily when he's being hypocritical, and that's honestly something I really admire/envy even if our setmaking tastes only align once in a blue moon. (The rest of you are cool too, I guess.) I'm sure others can and have detailed my involvement in more, uh, detail than I'd ever be able to, so I'll just leave it at that and let you all know that as the first and only internet community I've ever truly been a part of in all my nearly 22 years, I wouldn't trade you for the world.

Not to mention the JamCons, of course! Dogma and Kureiji Ollie kinda fell flat, but I'm certainly not the kind of person to think my portfolio is any worse off for it. I set for my own passion, and the personal satisfaction of adapting cool characters I like to a side-scrolling platform fighter and letting people know about them is all I need. I mean, getting in the Top 10 and the finale writeup would be nice, but y'know. On the other hand, the Cookie Scouts were a surprising success for a set I was not at all sure of, coming out as JamCon 2's winner and leaving me in charge of something that I managed to not screw up! Lucky me.

And of course, now that the contest's over, it's time to start thinking about next time. You all already know about Wheelie and the Scout of course, but aside from them I've got three others I know for sure I want to try and get out next contest: "Insulation" will be one [swear word] of an expedition, "Big Bang" is gonna be the best thing since sliced bread, and you'll never see "Maat" coming given her role in her source material. Of course, all this depends on me not being painfully slow at writing in-between all the JamCons, so hopefully I can get in gear for that as well at some point. Here's to another resounding success, everyone! See you in MYM25!

 

[Slavic]

ATTENTION CITIZENS! ATTENTION CITIZENS!

DUE TO THE RAMPAGE CAUSED AS SHIN GODZILLA REAKS HAVOC ON THE THREAD, ALL MYMERS ARE TO BE EVACUATED AT ONCE.

PLEASE HEAD TO THE DESIGNATED MYM 25 EVACUATION ZONE IMMEDIATELY!​