Make Your Move 26: Top 50 Is In! MYM27 starts on January 31st

[FrozenRoy]

Cool. Do you have an invite link?

I'll private message you one!

 

[GolisoPower]

Step right up, because I'm building the next aisle in...

GOLISOPOWER'S COMMENT LIBRARY

Here we have...
Cu Chulainn by n88
Petra Macneary by FrozenRoy
Nonon Jakuzure by Slavic
Margaret Moonlight by Arctic Tern
McDonald's Chicken Tenders by FrozenRoy
Emidius Alvisia by majora_787
Tulin by BridgesWithTurtles
Hilda by n88 & FrozenRoy
Minami by U UserShadow7989
Satsuki Kiryuin by FrozenRoy & Slavic
Witchcrafter Schmietta by Katapultar
...with more to come!

 

[FrozenRoy]

An announcement for all of you! While we are still going to open voting today, on a crisp Halloween day, we're extending voting period to the end of the year December 31st! This should give everyone needing a little reading ketchup ample time to finish off, but not make it so those folks who've done all their reading are twiddling their thumbs.

We'll also be doing something a bit different this time and be keeping full edits open during voting period this time around due to some external factors. So don't worry too much about that! This contest's vote gurus are FrozenRoy and BKupa666, so please send in your votelists to them.

On a note related to the day, thanks to everyone for making Movetober a rousing success! We got heavy participation from start to finish this year, with some real crazy variety in characters and ideas. Hopefully when MYM27 does start, we'll see some of those truly converted into full fledged movesets! Happy Halloween everyone, and see your sets at the finish line!

 

[FrozenRoy]

The above is not indicative of anything, but just me testing if Imgur is fixed as it started working in Previewing.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Komachi, Komachi (Margaret Moonlight Arctic Tern )

This was definitely a set that instantly interested me when it was posted, especially given No More Heroes' cursed history: Behind only Homestar Runner (and tied with Sly Cooper/Puyo Puyo), No More Heroes is one of the franchises that has had the most sets (8) without ever reaching the Top 50. Fitting for her to pop up given the first Jamcon theme, no?

Margaret's light and floaty stats certainly feel like they help sell her ethereal and supernatural, almost ghost-like persona pretty well, and Neutral Special is a rather cool take at a "sniper stance". In a way it basically allows her to segment the starting lag of her big, killer sniper shot, while keeping the "shotgun and scythe" vibe of her weapon that is very important. I also like how the way it encourages the foe to Rush Recklessly in is like her boss fight, where charging in against her sniping and then cornering her is critical to actually beating her. Interesting that she can cancel it into a combo ender but by nature it will be the weaker close range variant, and of course using it that way would stale it for the kill power Margaret would badly want from it. A nice, fascinating tension here. I do wonder why the move can't shield cancel like most moves, and yet Shield Special lets her just cancel it anyway. Side Special is a pretty clever implementation of a command grab that works into her stance mechanic, with reasonable reward. Up Special being a combined Peach Float + Plunge feels rather unique, I can't say that's a common combination, and I rather enjoy the way she can also use it as a kind of "sniper platform" vibe which given how her fight works in No More Heroes 2 yeah she kinda needs that.

Down Special, funny enough, reminds me of Petra's Down Special with a "flash step" style blow where one of the key weaknesses is the very limited directions of movement. An anti-Flip Jump, if you will. The way that Margaret can double aim her rifle-scythes in Forward Smash w/ Neutral Special feels crisp, it is a good implementation of her weapon, and I do like how it plays into the sniper fantasy that Margaret demands. Down Smash and Up Smash might be overall simple moves, but they do rather beautifully fit into her "come and get me" playstyle, I particularly like Down Smash here as it is one of those moves that adds a lot of gameplay via context rather than mechanics.

I will say this set, in general, feels like it is a bit weak or undertuned in some areas and particularly in some kill percents. A 17 frame Dash Attack feels like it should kill somewhere earlier than 150% (even if I do understand not making it too powerful given the delay) and the second hit of F-Tilt which isn't even a combo from the first killing at 160% yet being one of her "casual kill confirms" feels pretty pathetic. Shave 20% off of both of them, maybe? I like Down Tilt as a laggy combo tool with additional utility. The aerials do feel rather...sedate to me, which given Margaret feels so positioned as an aerial fighter is a bit disappointing to me, what if she took more advantage of stuff like double jump rising aerials? Down Aerial does feel like it plays the most into her stats and is pretty nice. Forward Throw's animation is very good, I like the "incorrect" version for it, and I also enjoy how Back Throw can sneakily deposit foes offstage given her strong edgeguard game BUT it would require her to be close to the ledge so it isn't just sniper city setup. Down Throw is also very thematic and I gotta say that it feels right at home, the little "minigameization" of her prone game is nice, the throws feel all tied up in a bow and like they play well while avoiding wordiness or excessive complexity.

In general, Margaret Moonlight is a damn fine set that feels aware it doesn't need to be 50,000 words long. I do think the aerials are a weaker segment that didn't take full advantage of what she brought and it maybe is a bit sedate at times, but the throws really helped bring it together and it is VERY aware of what it wants to do. I'd be surprised if this didn't break No More Heroes' curse of placement! It's a set that roughly knows exactly how long it needs to be, always a good sign. I do also like the fact it has some nice animation flourishes and touches, it feels very good for a character heavy on implication moreso than screentime and a fan favorite of course. A Tern set not to ignore, that's for sure!

Citizen Victory (Citizen V n88 )

This is a charming little set! For a very svelte word count (7.5k), Citizen V packs a lot into it: I think your blend of concise yet witty writing keeps things constantly flowing, and the set is very good at delivering implication when it needs to. I like how well it builds a direct set of subterfuge, dealing with overly specific hitboxes, tech chases and some mindgames in some very tidy ways. It has just enough mini mindgames to not get too annoying, the F-Smash/D-Smash animation mixup is wisely only on one move pair and not the easiest to throw out for example, and the moveset is pretty aware of the weaknesses it gives him. Cape Feint being so outwardly "weak" but actually an amazing tool fits the fakery of the character but also is some real slick moveset design. Up Smash does feel overly weak for the amount of lag it must have and the awkwardness of perfectly hitting it, even if you don't want to amp up the throughout-sword strength maybe giving it a particular sweetspot would be ideal? Attacks like Down Tilt and Forward Smash feel very aware of how the set would play in a real Smash context, and this is the kind of set I could 100% just see IN Smash that I do wish I saw more of from Make Your Move at times. The grab game feels like somewhere an added "dimension" to the set could have been put in, it does feel a bit underwhelming if intentionally. I'd also say the twist at the end definitely helps show this is a very well characterized set, and I think this set fits in some really nice animations like Dash Attack or Up Tilt, nothing groundbreaking but the way they're presented is very fun. Pretty unsurprising this is something that appeals to me personally on a high level, but I think pretty much everyone can at least find something to like about Citizen V here.

(FYI Forward Aerial says "The sweetspot is… safe on hit?" when clearly referring to the sourspot)

 

[Arctic Tern]

It has been… way over the allotted voting period (even with the extension), so I suppose it’s time to end it. Thanks to all participants!

Sherlock Holmes by WeirdChillFever and FrozenRoy - 3 (GolisoPower, UserShadow, BrazilianGuy)
King Radical by UserShadow - 2.5 (Arctic Tern, ForwardArrow, voter bonus)
Shadow Naoto by Arctic Tern - 0.5 (voter bonus)
Alternate Gabriel by GolisoPower - 0.5 (voter bonus)
Grim & Gnarly by BrazilianGuy - 0.5 (voter bonus)​

With that, Sherlock wins the Jamcon - but just barely! This was a rather popular theme, with many good entries that just got swept up by the leading two. High hopes that the next Jamcon’s theme receives just as much attention.

 

[Fletchking-Team Dream]

It has been… way over the allotted voting period (even with the extension), so I suppose it’s time to end it. Thanks to all participants!

Sherlock Holmes by WeirdChillFever and FrozenRoy - 3 (GolisoPower, UserShadow, BrazilianGuy)
King Radical by UserShadow - 2.5 (Arctic Tern, ForwardArrow, voter bonus)
Shadow Naoto by Arctic Tern - 0.5 (voter bonus)
Alternate Gabriel by GolisoPower - 0.5 (voter bonus)
Grim & Gnarly by BrazilianGuy - 0.5 (voter bonus)​

With that, Sherlock wins the Jamcon - but just barely! This was a rather popular theme, with many good entries that just got swept up by the leading two. High hopes that the next Jamcon’s theme receives just as much attention.

So the M.O.M. event is over?

 

[FrozenRoy]

So the M.O.M. event is over?

To be specific, Tern is talking about the "Jamcon" event we had right before the end of the contest that involved making sets for a theme in a 4 day time limit.

Link Here: https://smashboards.com/threads/mak...december-the-31st.519455/page-8#post-24861941

 

[Fletchking-Team Dream]

To be specific, Tern is talking about the "Jamcon" event we had right before the end of the contest that involved making sets for a theme in a 4 day time limit.

Link Here: https://smashboards.com/threads/mak...december-the-31st.519455/page-8#post-24861941

I see.

 

[FrozenRoy]

World of Tank Girl (Natsume Iroha Katapultar )

While obviously the set is very different, this set instantly reminded me of MYM14's Salvatore set of yours in a very different way from, say, Ferrijit in that I feel like the military theming combined with the goofy atmosphere that feels Disgaea-esque rather than Ferrijit's very orderly minion aspect (which IIRC Wakamo had some of). You shan't hear me complain anyway. (Also, funni stats)

Man, the tank really has that nostalgic feel. Just a big-ass, 200 weight construct you can stand on with various different rules to it. Some true MYM12-core here. I ended up kinda just taking notes as I wrote and making that the comment, sorry if that is disappointing.

- Not gonna lie, I hate fighting on Smash ladders, although it being more of a summonable with more control helps.

- I like it being able to save teammates with the ladder. It feels very Blue Archive-y.

- Not entirely sure how much I like the amount of stuff coming out of the blast zones. Part of me doesn't mind and another part wonders if it feels like a bit much.

- I like the turning trick on Side Special.

- Yooooo is that TANK DESYNC

- I feel like Iroha mirror matches devolve into Tank Jabbing each other in funny ways in the tank.

- I am going to wager this is one of the most MYMcore sets in the entire contest just from the Tank's Jab and Dash Attack on top of all the mechanics.

- "At low percents, the tank’s travel speed allows Iroha to catch up with her launched opponent, so they land on top of the tank and are actually forced into a tech situation! " This is both a kinda unique use for the tank and also Funny, I like it.

- Can Iroha use her Tank Dash backwards?

- The tank Forward Tilt / Smash is pretty cool! The different input angles are pretty important to her set given how the tank's limited attacks work. The falling shell works well with the top of the tank being a platform and movement. The down input, Iroha's ledgeguarding game with tank mechanics is surprisingly thought out so I like seeing the move directly play into it. Being able to use the Up Angled variant while Tank Dashing is a really good use of Iroha's inherent traits, and feels like it adds to it beyond "he he delayed hitbox and run". Very fitting for a tank...wielder??

- Just now realized Tank Dash is an alternative recovery option, interesting.

- I like Tank Down Tilt playing with the funkiness of the tank's solid nature for proning the foe on the cannon. "On the other hand, the tank’s length makes Tank D-tilt terrifying against rolls: few if any rolls in Smash go farther than the tank’s length, leaving that foe right next to the tank to get spun at." Doesn't a foe rolling through the tank end up extending their roll to go through the other side? Granted it would still catch them at the end.

- I feel like Tank Down Smash should have a way to optionally go through "soft" platforms, maybe smashing down on the stick while in the air or something? Otherwise it makes it impossible to use at the ledge on a stage like Battlefield, which seems a bit against the design ethos at play here.

- "The main hitbox also deals abysmally low shield stun, making the gunshot punishable from anywhere. " I do wonder if this would be true from the longest ranges, but it would still let the foe approach for free at minimum so. Kinda wild it has reduced shield stun but increased shield damage, rather interesting (although maybe a bit odd feeling).

- "The hop also carries Iroha off the ground over its duration: allowing her to hop onto her tank or go offstage, but there is literally no reason to hit recovering opponents with Dash Attack when the inwards knockback will save them. " If she's under the stage with her back facing it, Dash Attack could cause a stage spike on the foe! Still not worth much given the setup needed for a weak stage spike but my brain wanted to see if I could find a use lol

- Forward Tilt is a nice, simple but fun glue move. I like how the different angles work into her gameplay, even including a useful backwards angle! I enjoy Down Tilt for similar reasons, being a simple but effective spacer and shield testing tool that feels like it is aware of just how much power the tank takes up in her budget.

- As MYMcore and intense as Iroha is, she also has some fairly bite-sized standard moves and it is honestly enjoyable lol

- How does F-Smash guarantee a move like Down Tilt or Forward Tilt if it has 2 grids of kickback? Lag canceling off platforms would put her airborne, after all.

- Being able to make a customizable-placement trap on the tank's top offers intriguing options with how much of the foe's play revolves around getting onto the tank and bullying Iroha. Also offers tech chase coverage!

- "Iroha rummages through her coat and extracts an anti-tank grenade with a sour look." Iroha: Never thought I'd be fighting alongside an anti-tank grenade...

- Down Smash JUST being an item summon only makes this set feel MORE like old school MYMcore, it feels like it fits the set enough to be Acceptable. I do like how adding in the item play works into the tank's solid nature, although I will say a tank being able to run over an anti-tank grenade and flip it upwards rather than get blown up feels pretty explicitly bizarre. Blue Archive logic I guess but I mean it is an anti-tank grenade! I mean I guess they were usually thrown at the top and not the bottom but still. Plus given the rest of the move it needed some lack of redundancy and also to not just blow up your tank constantly.

- I do like getting to just ****in' explode your tank five million feet into the air. It's a unique movement option that really takes advantage of Iroha's unique capabilities. Being able to just turn it into a big goddamn bomb is also great, specific enough it won't keep happening by accident and is instead a cool tech. You could Z-Drop into the tank's hatch as well. I do like how given the grenade is fairly potent for Iroha, it can backfire on her given its. You know. Anti-tank nature. I do wonder if Iroha should get a VERY brief period to bail on the tank before it explodes (15-20 frames?) when the foe throws it in the hatch, to prevent it from being so scary against her that she never uses it.

- I feel like as described the sweetspot Down Aerial probably kills earlier than 150% at ledge just as a matter of course. Just a hunch though. I really like Up Aerial's visual flair, it's kinda badass.

- Iroha in her Neutral Aerial be like "big sleepy" lol

- Back Aerial being an alternative way to heat up the tank gives it some utility, and I also like that there's a bit and give-and-take here of using it with a tank getting the foe in the right spot vs. actually having a hot spot where you want it.

- The entire grab game is good. I will note 152% isn't all too bad for an Up Throw kill when you said she doesn't really have any kill power but not enough it meaningfully affects my opinion of the set. The set feels VERY aware of the differences of Iroha in vs. out of the tank, with smart adjustments to account for all of it and overall do well. It's true that most of the power-ups here amount to souped up kill throws, but unlike a set like Carrot these all have very distinct usages, like a specific time bomb, a straightforward kill throw, and one that is extremely spacing dependent due to needing a large "runway" which feels like a good use of the tank mechanics. I do kinda wonder if, in the "hierarchy" of kill throws, the time bomb should be higher but then again you DO get to combo into it and get more threat. Great job!

As an overall summary, Iroha was great! The tank definitely provides some iffy balance, and maybe there's some flavor quibbles or minor stuff here and there, but nothing much against the amount that really stuck out for me in the set. The tank is a huge centerpiece that demands a lot of attention and the set is VERY aware of it in a way that older vehicle sets were not (although ofc in stuff like 8-player smash this'll still be very silly). Tank Forward Tilt / Forward Smash along with the Anti-Grenade Down Smash feel like particular highlights, loooove the way the tank shell can be angled for different purposes in a set where it needs to have some modality. The set keeps some of the standards and aerials understated, but in a way where the usages still feel obvious: This set SO easily could have been bloated up to like 30k and I am very glad to kept to a more reasonable word count (sure it is 18k, but don't forget it has an extra 5 inputs!). This set is one I have highly rated and is absolutely gonna be a contender on my votelist.

tick tock MAKE SETS (Vriska Serket cashregister9 )

Figured I'd give this set some commentary even if it is really late, I do have to say I am glad you chose a troll with a relatively normal quirk to write because one with the very complex typing quirks might have been a difficult read. Certainly gave me a nostalgia blast to the days when I checked Homestuck's updates daily and was off theorycrafting or on fan forum adventures...

Is it weird I always imagined Vriska as kinda tall? Not really set relevant but came to mind reading stats, Sora size seems good.

There's of course some common stuff here for advice: The moves are pretty threadbare and I'd be interested if the set delved a little into, say, what some good combo starters are out of her teleport-y Down Special, or what some of the better moves are to chase after somebody when they trip on her 8-ball liquid traps. Stuff like the Peach Float could have some specific aerial use, or maybe the speed boost from her shield mechanic allows new combos or whatnot.

In a more macro sense, I know you mentioned Vriska as a defensive / trap-y character, but only the 8-balls feel like they particularly play into that. I would have liked to have seen her maybe have some more hitboxes that felt specifically designed for a good defensive play (maybe involving her sword?), or maybe more of a secondary trap she could set somewhere. Similarly I'd say as much as Vriska is an IRONS IN THE FIRE planner she also can be impulsive and rush in, so a bit of push and pull on going from defensive to aggressive would be nice. I also think that the cue ball on the 8-ball is maybe a bit too strong when it goes off (the Flourite Octet is at least going full G&W Judge), also right now the traps seem to just stay out forever? That might be kinda busted.

The set commits to what it wants anyway and I respect that, was a quick l'il read, feel free to come on back and post more next contest! I know you had posted before in MYM24, wouldn't hurt to see you around again.

 

[FrozenRoy]

You're telling me a Kingler fried that rice? (Kingler tunz )

I know it's not your biggest set, but I had a little time in between some RL stuff and Kingler was 4.5k so I gave it a quick read.

Honestly, not all too shabby for an early set at all? It's a little feller that's hyper-focused on juggling with water moves while having boostable melee with Swords Dance. Crabhammer is a big hulking payoff move, and otherwise he has some other decent options. There's enough here Kingler definitely has a coherent playstyle, but I do kinda wish the set went deeper into things, and outside of that I think that Kingler could have fleshed out the dynamics of Swords Dance more. I think the water moves being almost exclusively upwards moves (outside of NAir and Up Smash) could have seen slightly more variety: In particular, I think giving him just one combo starter for more grounded moves that could allow him to lead into those could open up some options, maybe a combo tool that isn't as good without Swords Dance but won't push opponents away too far WITH it and thus has niche as a specifically-for-Swords Dance combo tool?

I also think Kingler's body type could have perhaps been used more, the small and big pincer dichotomy could have popped up in some ways outside of the Smashes, and I think if Forward Smash was an optional 2-hit could be fun to allow Kingler to just poke out with the first hit for some mindgames on if it'll go for a second hit. Maybe even make it so the second hit can also transition to Down Smash? Much weaker if you hit the foe in the front, but if they roll behind and you Down Smash you catch them with the stronger back hit of that hitbox. Something like a 2-hit aerial that goes small pincer swing -> large pincer swing that combos when Swords Dance is up but maybe is more first hit only could be interesting to make you think about not always having it active, maybe landing the first hit can be a combo tool? Just some thoughts, but it does feel like this set could go a bit more in general. How Kingler plays neutral to get time to use Swords Dance is a bit under-elaborated or developed for example.

Still, not a bad effort for an early newcomer at all, and it was an enjoyable quick read. Plus AFAIK you surpassed this with other sets like Junkrat, The Empress or Reinhardt, so.

Iamsoglad thissetwasnotwritten likeShawspeaks (Shaw bubbyboytoo )

Shaw's a nice and tidy little set, one that is pretty focused overall. I think the high end focus on edgeguarding and water pushing mostly works well for her and is good with 'er, the aerials felt like a fun highlight as I enjoyed the sorta "secret" spike hitboxes that Shaw can whip out for some precise action. The barricade blocking some forms of getting up from ledge also plays into this although I suspect this could have been taken a bit more advantage of with Shaw's normals, although stuff like Up Smash plays into it well. I do agree with some discussion I saw, I think from Nate or Khold, that the barricade could be played into more with Shaw even without any "hard" interactions as Shaw doesn't feel like she gets all that much advantage from it sometime. Side Tilt and Back Aerial do feel like some underrated ways to take advantage of it, but I think some more could have been done. I kinda wish the fire extingusher could have been a more full held item, which might have allowed some extra play with that and given Shaw some added dimensions (plus it having different properties depending on how full it was as a customizable tossable item would be neat?). It could even be combined with the water push on the hose, since you could push the item around (fun with the Abyss Rune with an explosive fire extingusher? Maybe even make that a plausible main set thing) as well. For a more hard interaction, blasting the foe into the barricade with water dealing extra damage or maybe a crumple if enough water pressure is put against them might be neat? Could do something like a Sephiroth FAir style move with an axe aerial.

The grab game was small but nice. I liked Down Tilt and her little crawl/crouch was enjoyable too. I do also think that the shield damage bits are a nice enough addition but maybe could have had more too, I kinda wonder if Side Smash should have gone even further beyond with shield breaking potential or something (and maybe did extra or insta-break to constructs like the one Abyss Rune there, although I know among other people in MYM the latter would be controversial so just extra damage would work).

Overall a nice set, currently on my votelist, the kinda set that the final placement will depend more on the stuff around it, y'know? It does sound like Peppino is a bit more exciting, so I'll be happy to go ahead and look into that

 

[FrozenRoy]

Poisonous Bellossom (Vileplume Slavic )

Woke up and read this in an hour laying in my bed today. It was a nice and breezy read and you continue to be good at presenting information. I'd say the experimentation with the playstyle section worked out here, neutral/advantage/disadvantage is a classic and it worked out plus Vileplume being straightforward and readable. The verticality focus was also fun, felt like a unique approach, the set comes together well. I do somewhat wish Back Aerial felt more aerial focused in terms of fighting as I think Vileplume could use another in-air focused aerial given the verticality focus, also Down Aerial could probably keep foes trapped longer. I do also like how this feels Bellossom-adjacent, with a similar focus but more heavyweight and poison-y which fits with the Vileplume moon focus. It is a well characterized Pokeset.

Two things I would note: Effect Spore seems rather strong unless I am missing something, given Vileplume still regenerates Moonlight during that time (so she can keep it up a LOT), and that unless I am missing something it does stay out the whole 8 seconds. I'm not sure it is actually too strong since Vileplume being hit inherently makes it less frame data positive, but it did feel like something worth noting. (Also it reminds me of Goldenglow's static, which is fun)

Secondly, given multiple Down Throws already do this, I think it would be cool if Venoshock had vertical knockback. Up Throw's a bit of a non-traditional Up Throw and Vileplume would enjoy a vertical launcher, Venoshock could do that while still having its kill throw utility. This does mean Vileplume loses near-ledge KO potential, but the added ability to get earlier KOs on platforms when Vileplume is vertically focused probably makes up for it. Overall a fun set that surprised me a little with how much I enjoyed it, not one to sleep on (unless you get hit by Sleep Powder)

 

[SaltySuicune]

Spoiler: Kakuna by Forward Arrow

Kakuna is kinda weird. I always like pokesets for completely random non-fully evolved critters, and I like the idea of being a weak character that has to debuff enemies to get a better chance, but this is a little too much. I don’t really get why Kakuna has two aerials and no throws but from what others have said I’m guessing that was normal back then, still I feel that’s going a bit too far when it comes to helplessness.

It seems the only way to do something is to make the foe as helpless as you, which honestly just doesn’t sound fun to play. Not only are you severely handicapped, but also I get the feeling getting a KO, assuming you don’t get inmediately KO’d by a heavy weight, takes forever. Even other remarkably weak characters like Pichu have something to balance them out, like for exapmle high speed. It just doesn’t really make me want to pick it up, sounds like it’s just unpleasant to play as. Which like, it’s ok, you said yourself it’s a bad moveset, but still I really didn’t like it. It’s a cool idea, but it should be dialed back.

 

[SaltySuicune]

Spoiler: Fuma Kotaro by Tortoise Not Turtle

I can fix her. But seriously though. I’m completelly unfamiliar with the source material and I already love her, she gives me ****ed up Undyne vibes. Also, I like playing characters that hit hard, so that’s a plus.

• I like Down B, moves that buff you are always fun to tinker with.
• The idea of a thunderclap strong enough to shatter ears is so cool, and so is Side B.
• I think Up B is one of my fave parts of this moveset, anything that allows me to go “Nuthin’ personal kid” is peak in my book.
• The fact that jab can kill and dash attack can crumple is incredibly cool. Goes to show just how strong she is.
• I don’t remember ever seeing a down smash that can start combos, that’s a nice surprise.
• I wanna make a joke about Forward Throw and Up Throw but… I think you know heh.

Kotaro sounds like the absolute menace you describe her as, and I’m here for it.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Due to the hold ups caused by the holiday season, we're slapping one more week onto the Voting Period duration- Voting will continue through January 7th. Get those last few sets read!

 

[FrozenRoy]

Setpathy For the Devil (Randall Flagg BKupa666 )

Randall Flagg is very clearly good on a read, but to be honest I did come away a bit more mixed than I expected. Let's start with the positives, such as the fact that Flagg puts out a pretty well done modernization of The Fly (of Despair!) that brings together some really unique minions, a tentacle blast zone manipulation mechanic that reminds me a LOT of Spadefox's in the past, and some unique way of interfacing with it with how attacks can "cross over" between the two planes and opponents get their attacks empowered. It actually reminds me a lot of The Great Dusknoir's Fly for some reason although quite obviously improved. I do want to at some point see a Fly that truly brings back the Alternate Stage concept especially with how we have Stage Morph in Smash Ultimate but Flagg's is very well done. The base of Offensive and Defensive predictions unsurprisingly reminds me a lot of Hol Horse's abilities (particularly the defensive predictions) and funnily is super close to a moveset I've been working on for next contest, and I do think this is a pretty swag money mechanic.

I do wonder just how much the melee felt designed around this idea, though. It might be that I am just missing it (more on that in a sec), but it didn't particularly feel like Flagg has much in the way of good mixup tools. This isn't to say he has none, Prediction Forward Aerial comes to mind, but for some of the moves it flows from predicting properly which means it doesn't allow you to mix the foe up with what they think your prediction is (since something like a 50/50 air dodge dares the foe to figure out which punish Flagg predicted next: The direct combo or the air dodge read). And I could see more done with combo enders where there's multiple options, thus allowing some multifacets to Flagg's decision on what to put at the end of an offensive prediction. Not to say there's none of that of course, it does feel perhaps a bit understated (or undercooked?).

Back to some good stuff: Side Special! It doesn't come up much after the input but this is an extremely fun "Dead Man's Volley" style projectile. I like the way that the ownership can dynamically shift control and the way that the Offensive Predictions can be loaded into it plus the way defensive predictions can be used when the opponent strikes at it. It's one of the cooler projectiles, but I also felt like Up Special was a pretty core component: It feels like one of the key glue moves that DOES help the aforementioned offensive predictions work out, being a clever usage of the fact it doesn't read Specials to enhance the combo game of Flagg. There's also more than enough solid individual moves in the set to come out with a positive outcome: Forward Smash feels like a highlight, Forward Tilt felt very fun with the offensive prediction, Dash Attack and how it worked with Todash space, and some simpler moves like Up Aerial to help keep things together for Flagg. Let it not be said he is devoid of ideas or good stuff.

Buuuuuut, I do kinda feel like Flagg spirals into some over-complexity at times, particularly in the control scheme: With how much Flagg is layering on at a baseline with all the predictions and Todash space and so on, the fact he has like 4 different follow-up inputs spread among disparate moves which themselves may be conditional feels like it adds on top of everything to be maybe even frustrating to play. It isn't horrible enough to drag the set into the abyss, but it does feel rather challenging to play. There's also little bits here and there that make me not quite there as more minor nitpicks: Up Smash is a kinda cool effect, but compared to how clean Forward Smash felt as a King reference I have to say the use of Mother seems a bit out there, and maybe kinda forced. Similarly considering the importance of the nuclear bomb in The Stand, the reference to it coming on a spammable 9% damage NAir feels...rather puzzling. It almost feels like that should be Up Smash or something, but then it would remove the theming of the Stephen King references too much perhaps? I'll also say some of the throw animations just seem like a Lot for the time frame that they're said to occur, it feels difficult for Forward Throw not to look awkward going at the speed it says for example, or Up Throw being especially legible.

Overall, Flagg modernizes a lot of difficult old concepts like The Fly while presenting cool individual moves and plenty of goodness along the way. I feel like the meat and potatoes don't always come together and that I have a fair amount of quibbles (some of which are minor) compared to a more "clean" feeling set like Natsume Iroha. For me, that means I don't value it quite as highly as some people seem to by putting it as one of their very top sets all contest...but nonetheless it is still really good and earns a high end spot from me at "the least". It was very hype for this character to get a set, and hopefully his final finish is good!

 

[FrozenRoy]

Society, Bottom Text (Goro Akechi II n88 )

I'll say I'm feeling a bit divided on Akechi, so I might move this set slightly after ranking. Akechi has a lot of really positive points and the one that felt #1 to me was the characterization once it clicked together. The way the moveset represents his self-destructive perfectionism, rage and need for control (yet ultimate lack of it) is very well done and I think the set has some great characterization-through-design philosophy. The Extras pull this through a lot too, like the win screens and key animations. This set is very "Akechi". top to bottom. There's definitely a lot of positives here too: I mentioned the Meta Knight x Little Mac mix of Specials and I do like the super high risk-high reward inherent in them. It helps avoid the Meta Knight "problem" (not inherently a problem but I digress) of having just fifty million recovery Specials. There's definitely some strong melee in here: Neutral Aerial, Forward Aerial, Down Aerial, Dash Attack (truly a Venn Diagram), some of the moves that play around with i-frames like F-Tilt, pretty much all of the Persona II Specials (but especially Brave Blade) and honestly all of the Persona III Specials as well and Down Tilt. This is a 40k set with like 4 alternate move sections I am not going over ever move I liked individually.

The reason I only said "a bit" because it is largely just how high into 9 or if I want to put it into 10, so some of the things I'm less certain about. I feel like the moveset maybe focuses a bit too hard on Desperation cancels and maybe could have had slightly more of a focus on how Berserk applies to his combos more naturally? Admittedly with so many moves my perception might not be correct, but it feels like Desperation is utilized a lot here (especially in some more fiddly spots to represent his control issues), while the idea of where to cash out with Berserk in more "natural" ways is more muddled. Akechi seems bizarrely weak against aerial opponents: Up Smash is a cool move but the implenetation feels a bit awkward on Akechi here, and I do wonder how well it plays into his also-a-bit-odd frame 22 Up Tilt, although obviously part of that is intentional and Akechi does have some fast aerials. Up Smash kinda feels more like a Special with how much the attack is put on a landing hitbox that's from actually landing and not just the "attack" if you know what I mean, although I did like how the landing attacks worked into things. The timer on some of Akechi's abilities, like Debilitation and the Awakening timer, feel on the short end to me (not to the extent Cu Chulainn had issues though) and I wonder if parts of Akechi are less viable than presented because of the tight timing windows. Especially with the Part III attacks being so laggy, having to start them within 5 seconds feels prohibitively punishing. And I guess compared to what I usually have with 10 stars, I felt like I had less...I dunno, excitement about this one? It's still very veeeeeeeeery good, don't get me long, but when I was reading New Jersey or Vania/Fatla I felt more glued to the page as it were, I dunno if Akechi quite pulled me in and amped me in that same way. But I do then look back and see a lot of really nicely made moves with some serious characterization to them, and I wonder if maybe I'm not being fair in that way. Could it be because the set has less pure "flashy" attacks that I am not considering some of the true excitement an excellent Neutral Aerial fits into a playstyle? That's something I considered and a reason I am going to revisit it before I vote.

Overall, Akechi II was really good. I do actually feel Akechi I, which I had rated highly and maybe should have put 1-2 spots higher, is very comparable in quality to this set and could be argued as the "better" Akechi, but why have only one amazing Akechi set when we could have two? Great job, Nate, and easy to see why it is a frontrunner this contest.

Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland (Black Alice OldManHan )

Just porting over some thoughts from Discord here, since I was making an Akechi comment anyway. To go over some of them a little: Black Alice is a pretty wild set as with Ilias and Adramelech before her, especially with the alternate timeline gimmick (which honestly I was surprised did not go a bit more wild). Definitely a lot of flashy and fun attacks out here along with a bit more varied melee than the other ones with Forward Tilt, Down Tilt and the like, Comet is a pretty fun and varied projectile to play into her game, a very fun Shadow Flare variant and the like.

I think to levy some issues with the set, Ilias/Adramelech already walked a very fine line and I think Black Alice maybe dipped her toes in a bit too far. The key thing is parallel timelines allow her to actually confirm and set up into her ridiculous attacks making them much easier to land than Ilias or Adramelech felt, which combined with Comet's (admittedly limited) cancel ability makes it so she can really get around some of the issues at play, plus some moves like Down Aerial are pushed. As I mentioned some of the aerials already have some lag issues, F-Smash also feels kinda too close to a Wolf F-Smash in speed for what it can do (I would increase the ending lag), and some stuff like that. I also feel like Kasen was a bit more "cohesive" than Black Alice as it were (tho she IS the Goddess of Chaos, so it fits?) with Kasen getting lower mostly because some parts of her might be mess with characters in unfortunate ways. I do think your writing style continues to improve, and Black Alice did a good job knowing when and when NOT to discuss something. (Akechi next post)

 

[FrozenRoy]

Gundam's Moveset Evolution (Dozle Zabi @Smady)

Went ahead and read Dozle Zabi, which was a pretty fun set! It definitely feels like a set that gains steam later in the set than early in my opinion: I felt like I actually preferred the Standards, Aerials and to an extent even Grab Game moreso than the Smashes as they build a great idea of how this guy would work. Smady's great at understanding the pitfalls of an especially tall and heavy set fighter, and I really like the way he has an aerial focus. Feels quite logical for a Gundam set, since aerial combat is about as close to space combat as you're gonna get in Smash. Stuff like the third hit of Jab you can cut to whcih helps with his less orthodox Forward Tilt is neat, Neutral Aerial has a lot of usage, Down Throw is a basic enough sticky bomb style move but it fits in great synergistically with his Side Special, Down Special and light keepaway, stuff like Up Tilt is nice as well. I like that he has an aerial focus but can't especially ladder, fitting and a good way to avoid some pitfalls that genre can fall into. The set also mostly has some really good characterization: Glad you included those concluding thoughts and I would say you succeeded at your goals of getting across the feel of "Gundam", especially that old school Gundam vibe, and Dozle's own brand of character.

If there was something that felt like it seperated it from the best of the Smadian offerings, I do think that it is mostly that the Dozle Family move really does feel awkwardly bolted on here. It definitely has its uses, Kycilia and Gihren's the most obvious, but the held input is rather awkward and it does overall feel rather disconnected from the overall playstyle to me. The set definitely isn't the biggest risk taker outside of that, but being solid up and down is a good way to get up there. Good job, and hopefully we can see you again in the future

 

[Katapultar]

Reading Period has been extended to the 10th.

To give a few people more time to read.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Make Your Move 26's voting period has ended! Expect the Top 50 soon!​

And truly, sorry it took a little longer than expected. Top 50 should be in the next 1-3 days. Enjoy!

 

[Katapultar]

1) Goro Akechi by n88
2) New Jersey by n88
3) Randall Flagg by BKupa666
4) Vania and Fatla by Katapultar
5) Joumae Saori by ForwardArrow
6) Mikazuki Augus / Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex by n88 and FrozenRoy
7) King Radical by UserShadow7989
8) Natsume Iroha by Katapultar
9) Hades by BKupa666
10) Minami by UserShadow7989

11) Iz by Katapultar
12) Sauron by n88 and GolisoPower
13) Dozle Zabi / MS-06F Zaku II Dozle Zabi Custom by Smady
14) Satsuki Kiryuin by Slavic and FrozenRoy
15) Black Alice by OldManHan
16) Anna by Daehypeels and FrozenRoy
17) Dizzy by Arctic Tern
18) Hilda Valentine Goneril by n88 and FrozenRoy
19) Nonon Jakazure by Slavic
20) Tulin by BridgesWithTurtles

21) Don't Touch Me by ForwardArrow
22) Scáthach by Arctic Tern
23) Astor by AwfulBeast
24) Goldenglow by bubbyboytoo and FrozenRoy
25) Witchcrafter Schmietta by Katapultar
26) Margaret Moonlight by Arctic Tern
27) Koitsu by UserShadow7989
28) Sherlock Holmes by WeirdChillFever and FrozenRoy
29) Akira Yuki by BridgesWithTurtles
30) Kagetsumugi by OldManHan

31) Patchouli Knowledge by Arctic Tern
32) Witchcrafter Potterie by Arctic Tern
33) Nui Harime by Arctic Tern
34) Dog Witch Caligo by Arctic Tern
35) McDonalds Chicken Tenders by FrozenRoy
36) Citizen V by n88
37) Kasen Ibaraki by OldManHan
38) Dark Scorpions by UserShadow7989
39) Manfred von Karma by Arctic Tern
40) Huff 'n' Puff by UserShadow7989

41) Ikkyu by Slavic
42) Shadow Naoto by Arctic Tern
43) Tinker Knight by majora_787
44) Ilyana by WeirdChillFever
45) Sotoka Rakita by Katapultar
46) Petra Macneary by FrozenRoy
47) Team Fortress 2 (The Spy) by KholdStare
48) Okiku by Katapultar
49) Porky Minch by Arctic Tern
50) Cu Chulainn by n88​

 

[n88]

Well, shoot. Thanks folks! Apologies for the incoming ramble. Let's do the self-indulgent retrospective part first. You can blow past most of it by skipping down to the paragraph that starts with "Oddish".

It’s kinda wild to be back in the winner’s circle again - this one was not as big a surprise to me as Hakumen. Or I guess I should say the surprise just happened a lot earlier when Akechi got an insane initial reception that marked him out as a front-runner. I really wasn’t confident he was gonna get that before I posted him. That was partly because some of the ways he’s ambitious and the ways he’s a Big moveset are unusual for a MYM set. There’s a lot of pretty normal stuff in there. He’s gotta be one of the most normal movesets in the contest, if we judge by the sheer volume of normality contained within. He’s also not necessarily “fun” in the way that some movesets are. A lot of the time when a moveset is strong, it’s because the author was having a fun time writing it and you can tell. It carries through the set and you can feel the momentum.

Akechi was written slowly and meticulously over the course of more than a year. He wasn’t a joy to write, I just cared a lot, and I think the writing reflects that. A lot of stuff was edited, scrapped, tweaked, reinvented, rewritten, and tinkered with. Some pretty major mechanics came and went from the set. At a certain point it became difficult to evaluate the work because I’d been at it so long that I’d lost perspective. I practically lived in the Akechi doc; despite going half a year without opening it (a streak I had to break because of something Froy pointed out the other day, thanks a lot), that doc still has never dropped out of my browser’s suggestions when I just click in the address bar without typing anything.

All this to say that I slightly lost my mind writing this, and I came to a point where I had to consider the idea that people might not like him very much. I felt I did a commendable job working through that uncertainty and coming to terms with the idea that I was doing this for my own sake (because I am insane) and not for external validation. As it turns out, you all have failed to put this to the test, voting Akechi to the top of the heap and ruining my growth arc. How dare you.

I’m thrilled and proud that my big passion project resonated with people so strongly though. He was meant to be my very first moveset on returning to MYM in MYM25 and while he uh… didn’t quite hit that deadline, he was being worked on in the background the whole time and informing a lot of my other choices. My actual first set back, Broken Vessel, was something I picked up to be kind of a dry run at that style of character. I can’t say it didn’t all work out in the long run; that long development cycle makes Akechi a satisfying capstone on my little comeback era, and a very singular project that I won’t be trying to replicate anytime soon. Not that I was trying to do what I did in the first place, but you get me.

New Jersey on the other hand, I would happily write again.

I was circling the idea of writing Big J in July (originally born out of a gag on Discord, I had never played Azur Lane) because I needed something violent for the end of the contest. I was a little leery of taking her on at first mostly because I wanted to make sure I could steer clear of Ye Olde MYM Ironic Moveset tropes. I had my ironic period as a kid and I really am not interested in returning to it. So before I even started laying out concepts I had an initial period of figuring out what Azur Lane was like and what the character was like and making sure there was something there that I vibed with. As it turned out I did get a kick out of her and enjoyed the historical references as a source of design inspiration to complement design/in-game skills, so things took off from there.

Big J was taken up as a gag, but admittedly there’s no real joke beyond “it’s funny to put a lot of effort into a silly character that no one expects”. This is probably a weird point of reference, but an old viral youtube video I think about more than I should is the drummer at the wrong gig. He doesn’t have to be doing that. No one asked for this. He could be phoning it in, but no. He’s going as hard as he possibly can. This man is a hero and his drumming is, unironically, high art. But it is, also, funny.

Anyway, New Jersey was a very high-octane set to write. She was fun! She’s probably my favorite child. Don’t tell Akechi. I think that energy came through for readers and is a big part of what propelled her to this absurd finish. Huge thanks to the community for putting her up on the podium there; this one was definitely a surprise and it’s kind of mind-blowing. It’s nice to see stuff perform well that wasn’t the product of a year-long derangement, y’know? All you need is a couple weeks and some funny ideas about a boat.

I’m also very happy with Mikazuki and Hilda’s placements. Froy is, of course, a great joint partner. A lot of you know that firsthand at this point, but if you don’t, please take my four joints and counting as an endorsement. Both of these were Froy rescue joints that would have withered on the vine had he not jumped in on them after previewing, and he brought a lot of heat to both (all over the place but most especially in the Mikazuki Smashes: horrifying/great input section, basically all Froy. Also Mikazuki NAir, great input section). So of course, a huge thanks and congratulations to Froy as my partner in crime.

Sauron started out as Goliso’s baby and he reached out to me about jointing it. He’s got the patience of a saint and put up with a very long period of me telling him I would be finished with Akechi soon and then I’d be able to work on it more (and also a very long period of me trying to get to some post-release edits and being too busy… ah well). He was great to co-write with - he brings a lot of enthusiasm to the table and the writing on the set got very bad cop/bad cop at times, in a good way. Another one where the energy behind the writing really shines through. Thanks and congrats, man! You did great work on this guy.

Oddish unfortunately was banned from the Top 50 for violating the Geneva Convention, so as the last stop on my self-congratulatory tour, seeing Citizen V and Cu Chulainn pop up is nice. I intend to keep experimenting with shorter sets and I’m calling these two promising early returns.

We had a whole zany contest here, though! I wasn’t the only one who wrote stuff. MYM25 is a damn tough act to follow but we did a respectable job here. This time we didn’t even run five months and we somehow netted 125 movesets - the contest was downright electric at times, really felt like we were moving at a breakneck speed.

I wish I had been able to read more but I had a lot of fun with what I managed to get to. I was particularly happy to see Vania & Fatla in the top 5, I know that’s been eluding Kat for a little while and that moveset is a blast. Nonon Jakuzure cracking top 20 was also a highlight - I enjoyed that one more than the average bear and was worried it’d fall by the wayside with me unable to vote and rep it. Also stoked to see Dozle Zabi do so well - loved that moveset and happy to see another Gundam fan doing it up. Also also Majora making it on with Tinker Knight is great, love to see a comeback.

There's all kinds of other stuff to like here too: couple of Turtles sets in the 20s, a few FFC high-performers, Tern putting a ludicrous ten movesets on, Bubby cracking 25, Khold getting the absurd Team Fortress 2 on there... The Top 50 is stacked and it was competitive the whole way down. Congrats to everyone who placed! Congrats to everyone who got votes! Heck, congrats to everyone who submitted. Creative work can be so tough and y'all're doing a great job putting yourselves out there. I know I read some sets I liked that I don't see here.

And of course, a big thanks to the voters and commentors along the way. The contest only works because of you guys and I for one plan to step my game up next time around in MYM27 (which will, by the by, start on January 31st).

 

[Katapultar]

We had a few less voters this time around, but the Top 50 ultimately went off without being delayed for too long. Akechi II was going to win for sure, good to see that he pulled off a Chou-Chou and got Super Votes from all 8 voters. Which is good, because he is a solid contender for my favourite moveset of all time. Thought that New Jersey would place 2nd too, after seeing that she would be Froy’s Super Vote Plus and the fact that her moveset seemed to have widespread appeal. Huge congratulations to n88 for these top 2 placings - you’ve just joined FA and Smady in this regard, which is especially amazing when modern MYM is arguably more competitive than some 10 contests ago. I thought that Flagg might place a little lower from seeing his placement on Froy’s rankings, but his 3rd placing feels right for how high he was for a lot of readers, myself included. Ended up correctly guessing NJ, Barbatos and Hades’ exact Top 10 placings, almost guessed the entire Top 10 but Minami T10’d in Sauron’s place. Wasn’t a vote guru this time around, and didn’t pay too much attention to peoples’ rankings (went for an “ignorance is bliss,” approach this contest), but it wasn’t too hard to guess the T10 candidates based on people’s comments and my own votelist.

• Placings 11-25th were roughly what I guessed, which is good as there were a bunch of worthy sets here. Nonon placed higher than I expected, Dozle got a surprising amount of Super Votes in spite of the competition he had, and I’m surprised that Margaret Moonlight practically broke into the Top 25. It’s strange that she was so popular when she felt more like a middle-ground Tern set, and that I thought Nui, von Karma, Potterie and Patchouli were notably stronger sets.
• Came surprisingly close to Super Voting for every Top 10 moveset that wasn’t mine - only Barbatos missed out, but if you account for the Top 12 then it extends all 8 of my Super Votes to Sauron as well. I’m sure Goliso will be thrilled to make such a breakthrough in the Top 50.
• Hilda almooost got Regular Votes from everyone. The closest thing to a universally RV’d set this contest, not unlike Joey Operetta or Alex from last contest.
• Good to see Black Alice getting strong rep this contest, with Han, Dae and Astor from FFC all breaking into the Top 25 with strong entries. Their growth from last contest is pretty insane.
• Thought that Sherlock Holmes would place higher, given he weirdly won the Crime Jamcon. It probably didn’t help that Slavic and US didn’t vote this time around - it would have been fascinating to see a MYM26 Top 50 where US, Slavic and n88 had managed to vote, but it worked out this time around.
• Cool to see Bubby get a new record with Goldenglow at 24th, even with help from Froy.

• Thought that Patchouli would place 10-15 spots higher - had the impression that she was going to be one of the bigger contenders when she was first posted, and the fact that she got her placing with the help of a single Super Vote says something. Patchouli’s Neutral Special is still a phenomenal move to me, anyway. Also surprised that Patchy, Potterie and Dog Witch Caligo all managed to get a single Super Vote.
• Somewhat weirded out that the McDonalds Chicken Tenders managed to place.
• Okay, I think that Manfred von Karma placed criminally low and ended up being one of the biggest victims of Froy being forced to cut his reading short, similar to Naoto from last contest. I thought that he was a genuinely strong Tern set, worthy of the Top 25 and a worthy successor to Warlord’s Von Karma moveset back in MYM12. I think Tern was pretty underrated this contest, which is a shame as they pumped out a ton of movesets and literally commented on every moveset, and I think that kind of commitment really deserves to be rewarded. I think they’ll fare a whole lot better in MYM27, given they have at least 5 movesets (two of them being 30ks) ready for that contest.

• I’m surprised that Tinker Knight managed to place and was as popular as he was. I thought Felix Alvisio was Majora’s top contender this contest, but I’m glad that he managed to get a good placing on his return contest. Definitely deserved for all the sets he made and the fact that he pumped out a lot of comments.
• Ilyana was a very good set that I think slipped under the radar. She’s another set that Froy wasn’t able to get to, and I think there was some waiting and anticipation with WCF having plans to edit Ilyana.
• Funny that Petra got a WV from every voter, yet she placed near the bottom of the Top 50. Just goes to show how powerful RVs and SVs are in the modern Top 50 meta.
• Great to see Team Fortress 2 make the Top 50, as they were one of the most ambitious movesets from this contest relative to their huge wordcount. They also look really good presentation-wise, and Khold did a great job with immersing the reader in the Team Fortress 2 universe. I knew I could count on a certain TF2 lover to Super Vote this moveset.
• How the heck did Cu place 50th? I swear that he was a lot more popular, and felt like he was going to make Top 30, but it’s kind of fitting for the funny man to get 50th (even if Citizen V feels more like a funny man). He was one of the most fascinating movesets this contest, being a real test of how good you can make a moveset with the shortest number of words possible (6.5k, in this case). Would love to tackle this type of short moveset myself, but my writing style isn’t humour-orientated like n88’s, Slavic’s or US’s at times. I believe that Cu fell a bit short because there’s an upper limit to just how good a really short set can be even if their ideas are good, because they don’t have the wordcount to sell their ideas as well as longer sets. I’d be very interested in seeing how far 10k-ish sets can get on a Top 50, though.

Shout-outs among non-placing sets. Kind of shocked that Azura didn’t place, I thought she would be more popular when she was a very solid Awful set that centered on melee and thus could have hypothetically gotten a vote from everyone. Thought Scout would place when he was Bubby’s main project this contest, while Oddish and Vileplume were pretty solid alongside the Emperor, Rin and Frank West. Actually surprised that Bandit Gal and Flandre Scarlet did not place, I thought they would both get a few votes and thought that people liked the former about as much as v-tan. Also want to give a shout-out to Dr. Facilier, Monkey D. Luffy, Bridget, Fuma Kotaro and Alternate Gabriel: none of these sets sadly received votes, but I thought they were all solid, and a few of them were close to getting votes from me anyway. I hope that dilliam, ComicWaterz, wizfoot, tunz, BrazilianGuy and TortoiseNotTurtle are not too discouraged and continue to persevere. I think all your sets received rather limited attention.


On my end? Very, very happy with my performance, as it was close to what I predicted and hoped for. I was hoping for a Top 5 placing again for the first time in 5 contests, but came close most of those times. I think modern MYM demands innovative “in-smash” style movesets to achieve Top 5, and I was confident that Vania and Fatla could achieve the appeal necessary for that. It’s satisfying to see these sisters in the Top 5, as they were the rare moveset that I was genuinely confident in on their posting. I honestly don’t know whether I like them or Tsukuyo better, though the latter feels a bit more special to me because she went through a more memorable design process that nearly rivals Catarina’s (redoing a nearly-finished moveset, got sick and used the time off work to finish her). Franchise-wise, it’s kind of funny that a random isekai anime gets such representation in MYM, but I have gotten attached to I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed out my Level during and after writing the leviathans’ moveset, to the point where I purchased some of the manga and light novels for research and because the series’ slice-of-life take in isekai appeals to me. Never thought that watching a random isekai anime would lead to me finding a pair of side characters that I got super attached to for their amazing character designs and similarities to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Dragonmaids. Can’t see myself revisiting the series set-wise, as while it does have potential the other characters don’t feel as inspiring or that they’d lead to super fun movesets.

Iroha’s placing is a victory in its own right: somehow got 3 Blue Archive movesets to Top 10 between 2 contests, which beats out Disgaea as the franchise I got the most Top 10 placings for. Kind of bragging here, but it does make Blue Archive stand out among all my “personal” franchises I’m associated with. I got into Blue Archive for the Ninjutsu Research Club, but Natsume Iroha was that one non-ninja character who I was really attracted to when I was getting into the series. She had a really good character design, and I knew I wanted to make a moveset for her and at long last make a moveset for a tank driver while I was in that phase of getting into BA and only being familiar with the ninjas. Part of me wanted Iz to Top 10 instead of Iroha to give BOFURI some Top 10 rep, but Iroha felt more right for the position because she felt more innovative as a moveset for being a modern vehicle moveset. Blue Archive having 6 placing movesets and 4 Top 10 placings will also look quite good on the franchise rankings. In spite of all this and how it’s become one of my biggest modern franchises, I don’t have any concrete plans or inspiration to make any more Blue Archive movesets. There are other characters I like, but I practically made a moveset for every character that I wanted to: Michiru, Izuna, Tsukuyo and Iroha, with Wakamo being a Jamcon bonus. It probably doesn’t help that I have set a high hurdle with most of those movesets: if I made a 6th BA moveset, people would likely expect it to be an Izuna/Iroha/Tsukuyo/Saori-tier moveset, and it would look bad if they weren’t or worse yet just didn’t place on future Top 50s. There are certainly other BA characters who could achieve success, but I think that at least half of the BA roster have mid-to-low potential on their own, compared to the 6 BA movesets who had potent props, in-game skills, powersets or assists to work with. A future BA set would have to work with using other Students as summons or assists like Saori did, but there are plenty of characters who lead a group in Blue Archive.

I pegged Iz as being on equal footing with Iroha throughout the contest, but I had a feeling that she would place lower and that proved to be correct. While Iz did not Top 10, 11th place is close enough and is nonetheless satisfying given the contents of the Top 10, especially as an improvement over Kanade from last contest (though Kanade is still handily my favourite BOFURI character). BOFURI is currently one of, if not my favourite anime at the moment, so of course I want the movesets for the Maple Tree Guild members to be the best they can be. Also, it’s funny that BOFURI and Nagasarete Airantou have roughly similar placings on their 3 Top 50’ing movesets at this time: 11th (Iz, Shinobu), 20th (Kanade, Kunai) and 31st or 35th for their lowest-placers (Mai and Yui, MYM16 Shinobu). Glad to see that Vania + Fatla, Iroha and Iz all had some degree of appeal with every voter and managed to all get 7 votes.

I wasn’t as invested in my other sets: predicted that Sotoka and Okiku would place low, but good to see them covering more ground on new personal Top 50 placements. They were never going to hit it big, they were made to appeal to my ninja girl fetish, but results-wise I have to wonder whether the time and effort invested into them (decent amount) and sets like Niva is not worth it when a better moveset could be made in a shorter timeframe with the right inspiration. On the other hand, they are still better than nothing if that inspiration for a bigger and more innovative moveset is lacking, and I’m still happy with them. Happy with Mizubashou as a quick weekend project, and Christmas Rose being a meme man and bonus BOFURI moveset. Schmietta, on the other hand, felt like she was smack between the Big 3 and the Bottom 4 in terms of quality: she was no Chame or Ferrijit, but I was confident that she would keep up my Top 50 Yu-Gi-Oh! moveset steak (currently at 7), and I wanted to dip into the Witchcrafter archetype after US and Tern did it last contest, and just throw out another YGO moveset in general. Also wanted to make a moveset for a FIRE Attribute monster, with the ultimate goal of having movesets for monsters of the 6 main elemental attributes: only the LIGHT Attribute remains now. Might figure out something for that later.




I’m not entirely sure about my future in MYM, as I might go through notable life changes in the near future. I specifically quit leadership because I wanted to take a more lax approach to MYM, and not feel like I have to live up to leadership responsibilities and comment on everything if I don’t feel like it one day. Means that I don’t feel tied to MYM and can quietly bow out (even if it’s just temporary) in case anything happens. Right now I do feel that I’m meant to be here for the time being, and will just take things as they come inspiration-wise.

MYM is in a peaceful, yet funny time. We’ve gotten a lot of new and returning members, like FFC and Majora, Turtles and now Hypah, so much so that I think MYM is getting more movesets than most people can keep up with. MYM26 went on for some 4 months, and we still got the same level of quality as MYM25 which went on for 6 months. We especially had a lot of movesets on Slavic Day. I also noticed that a few of the late readers in both these contests weren’t able to finish reading every vote-worthy set, which resulted in some sets like Naoto, Manfred von Karma and Illyana not getting as many votes as they perhaps could have. I personally have no issue with my smaller sets being skipped, and think it was for the best that the reading period didn’t get dragged out longer than it needed to, yet Froy and Goliso were still able to vote.

The effects of the increasing influx in movesets is notable in the absence of a few regular voters: n88, Slavic and UserShadow. I’m curious what votelists from these 3 would have looked like, but I get how reading 60+ sets would be extremely difficult, especially if real life issues are abound. You can’t really force yourself to read if you don’t want to either, as it has to be something you enjoy. Don’t feel bad that you couldn’t vote: it doesn’t make you any less of a leader, as everyone has their strengths and something to offer in the leadership.

This might sound controversial, but I somewhat question MYM’s long-term sustainability. If we get tons of quality sets like we have been, it will mean longer reading periods and people that might be deterred from voting due to the sheer time commitment, which could make putting together a Top 50 more difficult. Personally, I think a solution to this would be having “smaller” contests: anywhere between 80-95 movesets, rather than 120-140 like we’ve gotten over the last 2 contests. Specifically, a moveset count that is low enough so more people can keep up and vote, but high enough so there is sufficient competition and to make placing on a Top 50 feel meaningful. MYM24 had 90 movesets, albeit a few jokesets among that count, but there was still some healthy competition and some T50 worthy sets that didn’t place. Honestly, around 95% of non-newcomer sets are good enough to place on a Top 50, and I could see MYM27 being a stronger contest than 24 even if it ended up with exactly 90 movesets.

 

[GolisoPower]

Well. That was a crazy contest, even moreso than the last. For me, set output wasn't like the last few contests, mainly because of my getting a job and moving and all that but man I cooked.

Flandre was a set me and Tern collabed with for an Embodiment of Scarlet Devil deal, with US releasing Rumia and Tern releasing Patchouli as well. I felt better with this collaborative effort than I did with Meltryllis because I felt bad having to give him all the work then so balancing it out more here was a lot better for me. Also, good job on your set output, Tern, you did an amazing job.

For the JamCon sets, I couldn't have been more tired while I was writing both Sevagoth and Alternate Gabriel. I suppose I should really change my mindset on how to approach these sets but regardless I enjoyed experimenting with both of them, especially the latter.

But then we got the big man himself, Mr. 12th Place himself, Sauron. Sauron sprouted after watching Death Battle, I'll admit, but he was really fun to write overall. I wrote a decent bit of the set before I decided to call upon n88 and his more extensive Tolkienverse knowledge to come into play with me. And boy oh boy I don't think I've had this fun with a collab set since Meltryllis last contest, this was a joyride and a half!

Chef Auguste Gusteau of Ratatouille said that "Anyone can cook"...and sweet mother of God did we cook.

Stepping up their game from last contest the FFC Crew really went all out here, with OldManHan leading this Top 50 with Black Alice. I always knew he was gonna get on a list like this eventually but 15th Place??? Hats off to you, my pal! Not just Han, either, there's AwfulBeast with his set for Astor and all his calamitously fun glory! The others like Brazil's Grim and Gnarly and Daehypeels's Bandit Gal were fun little reads that should be of note. Overall, nice job from our new guys!

Let's talk about the big man of the hour: n88! Not only did he get his second victory in a row, but this was his first solo victory with Goro Akechi and his Black Mask shenanigans. Dude has gone consistently nutso with his set output and quality and has even delved into facets I don't think we've ever seen before in sets like New Jersey, who was arguably one of the best Gacha sets we've had since W.

Speaking of Gacha sets, ForwardArrow really popped off with his Joumae Saori set. I legitimately was not expecting him to make a Blue Archive set, but I admit she was a very pleasant set...then again he did give us Valkyrie and W but either way. He was busy with other things and despite that still casually got Top 5, that's crazy.

Speaking of Tern, he didn't just cook, he had like 5 whole kitchens cooking at once! Starting off with monsters like Dizzy, Patchouli and Flandre before cranking out sets like Dog Witch Caligo, Witchcrafter Potterie and Scathach. Bro probably has a Meta Runner Arm for setmaking at this rate! And from what I could tell he's got several more down the line for next contest, the grindset is real. Nice work doesn't even cut it at this rate, my friend!

Just...oh my god, these're just a few but everybody, Katapultar, FrozenRoy, dilliam, returning legend Majora, Khold, they all cranked out a whole smorgasbord and it just makes me impressed with everyone!

I'm really hoping to get back on the grind now that things have settled down for me, and I am just extremely happy to be working on who I've got in the pipeline. See y'all in MYM27, everybody!

 

[Hyper_Ridley]

THE RIDLEYS​

Since I didn't vote this time around, here are my top 3 sets of MYM26:




3. Huff 'n' Puff by UserShadow

2. Dr. Facilier by dilliam

1. Team Fortress 2 by Kholdstare

The Ridley for TF2 will be accepted by The Spy, as the rest of his team couldn't make it.

Since I'll be around for MYM27 from the start, I hope to read more sets and branch out with more characters I'm unfamiliar with. There's still a part of me that can't believe I'm back in the realm of MYM, but hopefully posting a set of my own will make it really-real-for-reals. I'll see everybody making their moves at the end of the month!

 

[WeirdChillFever]

This is going to be a shorter post, considering I only read 13 sets and made only four of ‘em this contest, so this should be breezy.

Congrats to n88 for the elusive top 2 sweep, not sure how rare it is as I’m not MYMs resident statician but it was definitely a triumph in this contest. New Jersey was definitely a brainiac set. Can’t comment on Akechi II just yet, but I do plan on getting around to it eventually. Congrats also to Kat for the elusive top 5, which according to my calculations only happens to five sets every contest. Huge! Congrats to FA for doing the same! Also props to Kupa for doubling up on T10 places! Can comment on Hades since I’ve read it, it was a really solid set with lots of character and the classic Kupa witticisms. Congrats to Tern for going off and popping off with a ludicrous percentage of the T50, even if it didn’t result in T10 placement. If you could see me, know that I am saying everything about you with a fear in my eyes and I can’t wait for your already stacked 27 output. Congrats to Froy, User and Slavic for some nice placements across the board. Congrats to Goliso, I think Sauron might be your new highest placing set! Deservedly has been coming your way after Eldlich. Turtles too with Tulin, very nice to see growth rewarded.

Congrats to the newcomers knocking it out of the park. Multiple relative newcomers have made the big time, not just placing but placing in very very respectable placements (and Azura placing in my heart as a very solid melee set that I would rank the same as Astor, personally.) Special category congrats to Majora for doing the returney thing and nabbing a spot with Tinker Knight. Congrats to those who didn’t make the list but showed notable improvement, such as dill and wizfoot. Facilier was a huge step up and definitely could place.

Personally this contest wasn’t my best (my fourth best contest, as the statistic euphemistically put it) and honestly, that’s fine. My only wish for next contest is to get a set out, which I might ask someone to collab on. I don’t know how much I’ll be chasing placement in the future: It does feel sucky to spend time on a set that’s just okay and doesn’t particularly stand out, but on the other hand the feel-good doesn’t always come from just the placing: I definitely enjoyed writing Cataquack more than writing Ilyana, for example. What I do want to do is focus more on reading: Being burned out at the end of the contest from just writing makes for a very long period where I was just “out of it” when I decided not to read, and in hindsight I could’ve made it with all the extensions. If I didn’t feel a certain sense of responsibility for finishing up Nabooru I would also just be completely fine with only delivering one set next contest, so there’s no pressure to cram myself through the set backlog in the productive department.

Finally, bit of a mystery how Sherlock won the JamCon but placed considerably lower on the ranking than Radical. I probably would’ve derived more pleasure from that if I felt like Sherlock’s win was deserved. Still, guess me and Froy (who was a wonderful set partner and definitely the reason why the set made T30 at all) will welcome you all next JamCon? I personally do have a theme in mind for that, but no set fitting that theme for my own yet and of course I want to hear Froy’s input.

 

[Kholdstare]

THE RIDLEYS​

View attachment 382924

Since I didn't vote this time around, here are my top 3 sets of MYM26:




3. Huff 'n' Puff by UserShadow

2. Dr. Facilier by dilliam

1. Team Fortress 2 by Kholdstare

View attachment 382925

The Ridley for TF2 will be accepted by The Spy, as the rest of his team couldn't make it.

Since I'll be around for MYM27 from the start, I hope to read more sets and branch out with more characters I'm unfamiliar with. There's still a part of me that can't believe I'm back in the realm of MYM, but hopefully posting a set of my own will make it really-real-for-reals. I'll see everybody making their moves at the end of the month!

Thank you for the praise my dude, I appreciate it!

 

[Arctic Tern]

While I don’t really have as much to say about my performance in this contest as I did the previous one, I will say that I’m not particularly surprised that I didn’t get the top 10 this time. Even as I was writing the sets I felt that none of them truly surpassed Remilia in terms of quality. In retrospect, I also agree with notes in the chat that I was playing it a bit too safe this contest, though rest assured my plans for next contest are a bit crazier.

With that said, since I didn’t expect a top 10 placement I am perfectly happy with getting a top 20 placement in the form of Dizzy! I was inspired to do a Guilty Gear set after finishing Hakumen and getting inspired to make more ArcSys sets. The original plan was to do Order-Sol, who has a very “unga-bunga” playstyle that I very much like, but I took a look at Dizzy’s Xrd page on a lark, thought her playstyle was neat, and went from there. It’s overall one of my favorite sets I made for the contest, both for fitting the character well and being fun to write (“Awe of She” goes hard).

Patchouli was a set I made for the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil movement that started with my Remi set and will hopefully be concluded next contest. I’ll admit, the idea to make her Specials work in cycles was partly inspired by her theming around days of the week but more so just because I really had cycle moves on the brain. It did lead me to the process of me making up moves for Patchy and the biggest Special I’ve ever written, which while exhausting was ultimately quite fulfilling. While ultimately a bit miffed that it wasn’t in the top 30, she did almost make it so that’s good too.

Flandre was a joint product with GolisoPower, who I previously worked with for Meltryllis. He’s someone very passionate about the characters he makes who’s willing to make sets with concepts that normally I’d swear off doing for being too over the top, and I respect that a lot. I did end up convincing him to tone it down, though - Flandre was originally going to have the power to blow up her foes directly, but it was cut since doing so was out of character. While I like the concepts in the set plenty, the melee ultimately isn’t the most well-developed to take advantage of those concepts, so I do understand why it didn’t place.

Nui was a set I made largely as a result of Slavic’s Nonon set. Kill la Kill was always something I liked, but didn’t really think about making a set for until Nonon made me realize that it does have a lot of untapped potential. Nui was one of my favorite characters and a character I was already brainstorming, so when a Jamcon that she fit ended up being the first I was all on making Nui (as was Tortoise). It’s probably the most “character” based set I’ve made in this contest, with me going into more detail on the animations than I typically do - this is mainly because her animations are an important aspect of the character but partly because she’s just fun. I did consider making Bad Girl from No More Heroes as a second set, since I had plenty of time to spare, she fit the Jamcon, and both she and Nui are psycho blondes in girly clothing from super over-the-top series. I ultimately didn’t go through with this because my ideas for Bad Girl aren’t finalized yet, but the next set is also thematically appropriate so I didn’t lose out too much.

Margaret was a set I made primarily as a passion project. Having had No More Heroes on the brain, I realized that MYM 26 would run through April 4th - Margaret is not only Rank #4, but also associated with death, which itself is associated with the number 4 in Japanese culture. With the perfect date set, and me wanting NMH to get a placement, I set about making her. Margaret was a fairly short set, but I knew that going in since the character doesn’t exactly lend herself to a long set. She ended up placing better than I expected, top 20, but that is 100% a win for both me and Suda’s works as a whole.

Porky was a similar passion project, for a character I really liked that I actually do want in Smash. This can most easily be shown with the Extras section, which specifies KO cries and has a full on stage with new music - I think this was mostly because Porky actually has a solid chance to be in the next Smash game, unlike everyone else I made. What mainly held me back from making him initially was my desire to get across his spiteful nature somehow, which I felt was a major aspect of his character - the whole reason he wants to destroy the world is because he wants revenge on the world for ignoring him. Once I came up with the NSpec idea, I quickly went to making Porky, and I’m happy he just managed to place.

Caligo was a character I was hesitant about making - or rather, hesitant about making so soon. My entry for her on my Witchverse character doc was very recently made at the time the Crime Jamcon was announced, so my ideas weren’t exactly finalized. I considered doing Arbok or Krookodile from Pokemon for the Jamcon, as Arbok is commonly used by criminal groups and Krookodile is lightly themed after stereotypical burglars, but my ideas for them didn’t come nearly as quickly as Caligo’s did. I’m very proud of this set, especially for it winning me my first Jamcon.

Potterie is one of the Witchcrafters, who I want to see sets for so I can get with my joint set Golem Aruru ideas. I started making her in a burst of inspiration after reading her card text and realizing that it could be interpreted fairly easily in a fighting game setting. The set kind of wrote itself after that, though coming up with “unique” use cases for the red and blue paints did get a bit difficult.

Golem was a 2-day set made for Slavic Day, since they previously made a set for the Alolan version of Golem. As you can probably tell by that, it was a short set that I never really expected to place, just be nodded at, generally liked, and ignored.

Shadow Naoto was my entry for the False Jamcon, which I ended up deciding for myself! The specific idea for “False” was one of the first Jamcon themes I came up with and one of my favorites for how versatile it was - several members of this group said that we could easily repeat this theme. Originally, I was going to make Eddy’s Brother from Ed, Edd, n Eddy, who is set up in the show as this larger-than-life cool dude but is revealed in the movie to be the only true villain in the entire series. But I also happened to read Froy’s old Shadow Naoto set on a lark, compared it to the character’s actual abilities to see that it didn’t really match up with how she fought, then ultimately decided to make a more accurate set for her.

Scathach was always a favorite character of mine in Fate, but it was only when looking up her game abilities that I realized that Wisdom of Dun Scaith gave her potential to be an upgrade set. The set more or less wrote itself afterwards - I knew what abilities I wanted to give her, and her animations give you plenty to work with. I remember feeling particularly proud of the BThrow, since I managed to get 2 paragraphs about the after effects of a throw that just deals middling knockback by detailing how Scathach’s speed lets her pressure the opponent afterwards, which is typically something I don’t do. While a fairly annoying set to work on at times, since I was insistent on properly spelling the Irish names and thus had to copy/paste them, it was still quite enjoyable overall.

Finally, Manfred von Karma was a character I thought about making since I decided to enter the contest. Given the low potential and very minimalist powerset, the Specials were the sticking point for me. I knew I wanted to have him frame the foe for a crime, as a counterpoint to how Phoenix operates in UMVC3, but von Karma’s immediate showings didn’t really lend themselves to that. Eventually, I decided that one of his Specials should have him shoot the foe so he can take the bullet out and use its presence in them as evidence they were at the scene of the crime, in a reversal of his own defeat. The accomplice in NSpec was mainly added because von Karma shooting the gun himself would be out of character (if someone picked it up they could trace the fingerprints back to him - he would take this into account, given how obsessively perfectionistic he is), which led me to having said accomplice take photos of them attacking. This is the only placement I’m actually a bit disappointed with, the lower ends of the top 40, since I intended for him to be my big ending set and he’s a decently iconic figure in MYM (he even has his own emote!).

With all of my stuff out of the way, I have to give a nod to everyone else’s sets! Akechi was my favorite set in the contest, so I’m very happy he won, and impressed that Nate managed to win two contests in a row and score first and second place. I wasn’t as high on New Jersey as some other voters, but she was still very high, and it’s actually inspired me to start looking at Azur Lane characters (for set potential). The top picks were genuinely fairly hard to make - in fact, while making my votelist, there were several SVs that were pushed down due to me remembering better sets. Of course, that’s not to say that every other set was bad; I feel that Frank West and Luffy ended up victims of the reading period, both very solid newcomer sets, as well as Mizubashou, which does really interesting things with traps. All of the top 10 ended up on either my SV or RV+ section, so I certainly approve of their placing.


So let’s get to the MYM 27 set teasing. The thing is, I kinda have 6 sets stockpiled over, almost certainly way more than everyone else. So I’m going to leave you with two sets of quotes: one for characters that will come, and one for ones that will probably come but I don’t know for sure.

In group “definitely arriving”:

“The Bird of Hermes is my name
Eating my wings to make me tame”

“My child, if you desire absolute victory, you must maintain absolute rationality.”

“I’ll feel great after I kill everything in this world!”

“Hunger is the worst sauce. One blood infusion packet, please…”

“Flies at high speed and attacks using its large venomous stingers on its forelegs and tail.”

“I’ll show you two everything of the moon’s insanity!”


And in group “maybe coming”:

“Life… dreams… hope… Where do they come from? And where do they go? Such meaningless things… I’ll destroy them all!”

“The formula for victory is simple. Get near them. Throw them. Run in close. Throw them. Guard. Then throw them.”

“I WILL BATTLE YOU AS MANY TIMES AS IT IS NECESSARY.”

“You have two options: either you die by my hand as a depraved devil, or you let me keep you as a human being. For the record, my pets get delicious food.”

 

[FrozenRoy]

It's a bit late, but Raw Top 50 Data for MYM26 is now on the Stadium! Enjoy it.

 

[Slavic]

CONGRATULATIONS, COMPETITORS!​

Life hit me like a pillowcase full of bricks this contest from start to finish, so I ended up taking more of a backseat this time around and only got to reading a dozen sets. Still, they were great sets! And I'd like to start this round of congratulations to everyone who read and voted this contest. Reading and commenting seems to be a taller order with each contest, and while I'm sure it'll slow down at some point that doesn't seem to be any time soon. To find time out of our increasingly busy and stressful lives to sit down and appreciate the work we are all here creating is no small feat, even if it might feel like it, and the community would simply not work out without the amazing dedication the people here have shown. Wonderful work by all who've read or commented at all, and the highest accolades to those who can reach the point of voting. I wish I had more to say but I've just been so not present with MYM this past year because of so many real life interruptions. Congratulations to Nate for one of the most insane placement runs I can think of, and to Kupa, Kat, and FA for snagging some coveted Top 5 placements. Froy and US helped round out the Top 10 of a stacked contest which I definitely have read more than one set of! And congratulations to all who put out sets this contest, I just wish I had more personalized commentary to give our members but Oops! No reading!

I've felt in a bit of a slump between this and last contest, but the Kill la Kill girls have kept me up in the Top 20 still, and Ikkyu placing despite how much stress it was to get him put out does make me happy. Team Rocket and Vileplume were both sets I thought might creep into the Top 50, but even if they didn't they were very fun sets to write regardless. And even Bandit got some votes, so it's hard to say this contest was really a wash more than just an unfortunate time for me and an astounding increase in set quality across the board. Y'all are hard to keep up with, but I'm determined to give a good showing next contest, mark my words, and hopefully I can get my life under control to let that happen. Thanks one last time for everyone stacking this contest so strongly, and see y'all in a few weeks for MYM27!

Also, big congrats to Nate for landing a leadership position! Glad to have you onboard in a formal manner!

 

[SaltySuicune]

Boy oh boy, it's set teasing time again, I will be leaving you with 7 shillouetes, plus a hypothetical eigth one in case this year I get around to everything. And 7 codenames to match.

• Jack​
• Apple​
• Wolf​
• Boom​
• Stripe​
• Thermic​
• Spike​

 

[ForwardArrow]

Another contest come and gone, and it feels like the immense enthusiasm from MYM25 ended up carrying over to this one too. You really would think that Slavic Day, the final JamCon, and ending day would've eaten into each other more, or that the 4.5 month submission period would've prevented us from having 125 sets, but here we are. I can't say its not exciting seeing MYM twenty six contests in and somehow feeling as lively as its ever been, and the community still feels relaxed and fun to interact with on top of all that. Its not like there aren't still bumps in the road, just look how long this reading period took, but I find myself looking back on what this place has become in the time since I left leadership with pride all the time. You're a great bunch. Keep up the good work.

So for congratulations, I'm still in awe of Nate's return. Akechi II is the kind of megaproject you so rarely see completed properly in MYM, and what's frankly astonishing is how much of that effort went into just polishing the set into something I'm... still kind of floored by, frankly. I fully respect Nate not wanting to create something this heavily produced ever again, and frankly, I could even see him surpass it for me just by having enough fun if New Jersey is any indication, but everything I said in my comment still stands. The set's incredible and absolutely deserves the #1 slot. Frankly, New Jersey's a great pick for 2nd too, that set felt incredibly fresh reading it while also having a ton of real depth and also a weirdly earnest high level of personality on a character I think would've just been treated ironically at best in most of MYM's history. He's got some pretty impressive joints in 6th and 12th with Mikazuki and Sauron too, and much as I know my beloved Mikazuki Smashes are from Froy, I gotta give Nate credit for coming up with the ludicrous mechanics that set is based on. Sauron wasn't, by comparison, my personal cup of tea, but its a very interesting set to think about for a really hype character who's very hard to implement in MYM. And honestly, I'm happy to see Goliso place so well. I personally felt bad seeing him not perform as well as he would've hoped last contest with Eldlich/Veronica, so it was refreshing to see his efforts on Sauron pay off so much.

Not like Nate was the only person with a stellar contest. Kat was killing it as always, and for once got the reward he deserved for it with Vania and Fatla finally cracking the Top 5 again. Its been long deserved, it feels like Kat throws around like 3-5 SV level quality sets per contest while commenting everything and frankly, sometimes he feels like he's too good an MYMer to be true. If you're stepping back a lot next time Kat, you've more than earned it, because you've been absolutely incredible these last few contests. And it really has to be said: cracking Top 10 in a modern MYM with a vehicle set is insane, and Vania and Fatla fiercely competes for my 2nd favorite slot this contest with some insane competition by being possibly the best set Kat's ever made in terms of just raw conceptual power. Randall Flagg was an absolute explosion of great ideas that never stopped delivering in both its crazy gameplay ideas and deep dive into Stephen King's wacky but often nightmarish lore, and Hades was pretty great too, showing Kupa hasn't lost his edge at all. Froy didn't focus much on solo productions this time, but he came out with a bunch of heavy hitter joints that showed his style could mesh well with an impressive list of other MYMers. Combining styles with Nate, Slavic, Daehypeels, Bubby, and WCF all in the span of one contest and having all of them get Top 30 is quite a feat, shows how well you can collaborate with people. US got a nice double Top 10 with Minami and the ever radical King Radical, and frankly, I firmly feel Koitsu was underrated. That set improved so much on Hikaru mechanically, and feels like exactly the kind of dopamine inducing snowball character I'd keep playing and dying as just for that one game where I get to go as crazy as I want to. I say that entirely as a good thing, I kind of love that playstyle.

Its also nice to see some people who returned or joined in MYM25 really step up their game this time. Turtles' two entries this contest both felt formidable, with Akira Yuki finally giving me what I wanted out of Jacky last contest in a form I could fully appreciate, and Tulin just being a set that feels really fun to mess around with in an experimental way that feels true to Tears of the Kingdom's appeal. Han got a highly formidable 15th place finish with Black Alice and got decent placings with both his other sets, and it feels so deserved. Black Alice carries an absolutely manic energy to it that has always been in Han's sets, but feels like its finally been given the layers of underlying depth to compete with the big boys. Frankly, Kasen and Kagetsumugi were no slouches either, the latter was editted to a very impressive degree after the JamCon that fully flipped my opinion on it. Plus you're a cool dude to have around in chat, I'm glad to have met you. Dae also got a pretty impressive 16th with his Anna remake, which showed just how interesting he could make the nuances of his sets with just a little more direction and MYM experience compared to /v/-tan. While Tern didn't have the big knockout hit he did in MYM25 with Remilia, he still got an impressive batch of placements, while also commenting everything and putting out like 12 sets in a 4.5 month contest. I'm still stunned that someone like that just... showed up in the thread out of nowhere last time, and he's still an excellent contributor who I really apprciate having around. Even if Smady didn't hit Top 10 this time, I'm still happy to see Dozle and the fact you were able to put out a set I wanted to SV while this out of the MYM rhythm is highly commendable.

I'm not even out of people to congratulate, because Bubby finally outplaced Cyclohm with Goldenglow. Its been a long time coming as Cyclohm probably is, what, the 7th or 8th best Bubby set at this point? You've gone on the record saying you'd like to get a similar or higher placement without a joint next time, but I think its still nice to see you finally break through even without a joint partner. WCF similarly did better than last time on the back of a joint, and I'm just glad to see that. Holmes showed pretty clearly you've still got ideas that click with people. AwfulBeast rounded out a trifecta of impressive 2nd roudn FFC performances with Astor in the Top 25. I wish Azura'd done a little better too, because the effort put into that set was commendable, but at least Astor's wild Calamity Ganon mechanics and fun execution got you a pretty impressive placing for only your 2nd contest. I'm happy to see Majora place again too: while I would've personally enjoyed seeing Emidius and/or Felix place as a bit of a redemption arc for the ludicrous MYMX Emidius, Tinker Knight showed some pretty impressive conceptual chops and depth for a JamCon and I do think its your best set this contest. Plus you've been a good friend of mine for a long time, so its refreshing to see you in MYM again. TF2 might not've been my cup of tea, but the effort that went into it was insane and I'm glad it at least snuck a placement.

As for how I feel about myself this contest, I was in a bit of a weird place. I honestly had a pretty good time writing the 2 sets I made this contest, but for as many great sets as there were this time, I think in some ways I've hit my limit. In MYM25 reading was a serious struggle for me and, to be honest, MYM26 was even harder due to an increased level of burnout and a similar quantity of sets, to the point I had to deliberately tell myself to not be as thorough this time as I sometimes am with reading because I just didn't have it in me to cover every possible WV candidate and every creator's best set. It sucks because I like giving everyone a shot, its important to me as someone who got ignored more than I would've liked in my earliest days in MYM. But I just don't feel the passion for reading sets I used to have anymore, and I think I need a while before I can do it more than 'occasionally'. Hopefully I'll be back there by MYM28, but if not, well, you will see me around reading regularly again someday. I at least feel confident in that.

As for sets, I'm quite happy with everything I posted that I actually made this contest! But while we're here, let's talk a little about the two pre-historic relics in Kakuna and Splosion Man. I made these back in MYM7, when I was about half as old as I am now and MYM was still pretty early days in terms of figuring out what it wanted to be. For the era, I feel like these sets would... probably have been passable if a little underwhelming in the case of Splosion Man, and bad even by the standards of MYM7's one day pokesets movement in Kakuna's case. But I think they're interesting to post to just to show how I tried to follow MYM7's trends at the time, and as someone with a pretty prolific record in MYM since I joined, a reminder that my beginnings weren't particularly impressive either. Also I just think some of the details of these sets are funny, from Splosion Man's embarassing late 2000-early 2010's cringey writing to calling Kakuna the 'cacoon pokemon' and having him eject the Weedle inside him to attack people. So like, I'm glad I posted these sets for a bit of novelty, even if they're pretty solidly the worst sets posted in MYM26 by anyone if we take them remotely seriously.

Now Don't Touch Me was my proper Slavic Day contribution, and for what it was, I feel fantastic about it placing 21st. At the end of the day it was the result of my Lobotomy Corporation loving friends suggesting it as a potential moveset crime, and me just actually getting ideas for it in spite of its lack of limbs and one-hit kill oriented power set. I talked about it a bit in the Author's Notes of the set so I don't feel obligated to say a ton about it here, but this was a shockingly breazy set to write considering its for basically a one note joke that doesn't make sense to put in Smash. The character doing so little honestly let me go mining around in the interesting fringes of its potential and, honestly, I think that was a very fun exercise for me. Is it kinda gimmicky and unbalanced in places? Yeah, I'd say it is, it was never going to avoid that and have it be character accurate, but the fact it still placed and was recieved well enough that it seems like people thought it had real substance makes me happy. It was a silly venture that somehow achieved everything I set out for it to do, and while its nowhere near my best, I still couldn't ask for more from it.

The last set I made was Joumae Saori, which honestly isn't a particularly wild character choice for me at this point. I've done my share of edgy female gacha characters because, frankly, I just think they're neat. I sometimes try to take a look into the series other MYMers invest themselves heavily in if I see a repeating pattern of wanting to showcase it well, and Kat put an almost comical amount of love into Blue Archive as a franchise in MYM25. So I ended up stumbling around looking at characters, finding Saori and immediately being interested in what I learned of her arc, so I went and watched the whole thing. And I quite liked it, it was nice to watch her break out of Beatrice's abuse and make some rather painful amends with Mika, as well as showing just how much she cares for the people she leads. In a genre with a lot of ensemble casts and a regrettable amount of 'everything good happens because of the player', I just appreciated that a character like Saori got to take control of her own destiny as much as she did.

Part of the challenge with Saori was that Kat had, honestly, set quite a high bar for the franchise already. Wakamo, Iroha, Izuna, and especially Tsukuyo were all excellent sets (and Michiru's still pretty good, albeit clearly a step below), and I felt like in making a set for this character with Kat very much as the intended audience, I needed to be on top of my game. But he also gave me some good material to work off. For instance, basically every Blue Archive set has a shared Neutral Special of 'the reloading gun move', which with a rapid-firing assault rifle and minion support felt pretty easy to figure out what to do with. Where I had to pick up the slack myself was with the minions, and I think the system I came up with of them being turrets or supports that you'd be painfully punished for losing felt pretty on brand for both Saori's general arc and the series she's in. Once I got enough interesting material out of the other three girls' kits, I had plenty to work off for the rest of the set, and honestly writing it I just felt glad I didn't have to get too gimmicky to keep making moves I felt were interesting. Plus, having more than one distinct personality on display here made it fun to characterize. I had a lot of fun writing how Saori/Atsuko interact, especially considering they don't get quite as much in canon as I'd have wanted.

And like Don't Touch Me, I'm just... fully happy with how this set was recieved, honestly. I came out of writing it feeling like it was my best set since Primordial Darkness/Xehanort, since it didn't quite have the conceptual chops of those(or the rest of the Top 5 this contest, really) and it seems like people generally agreed. It honestly made me feel really good seeing Kat so excited to see one of his more niche franchises acknowledged in a way he also found to be a very good set, and to feel like the effort I put in to make this more polished than any of my MYM24 entries paid off in what's probably an even more competitive contest than that was. Plus I finally went out of my way to put a trauma mechanic in a moveset after Majora started reading sets, so he could get mad at me for frankly entirely valid reasons. That was funny. I'll do it again sometime once I get my emotional trauma privledges back.

I sorta wish I had more to say on both these sets, but I do find my distance from MYM as of late has left me with a bit less to talk about than I want to. But in the end, I'm happy with my MYM26. I wish I didn't burn out as hard as I did in the end, because this remains an awesome community and it'd be fun to try and pitch in with more sets next time or something, but we all get tired sometimes. For now though, I'd certainly call this another strong contest: there's always little issues to be worked out in any given MYM due to the everchanging nature of the community, but it feels like our community is as ready as ever to take them on.

 

[Deleted member]

Another MYM down! I’m going to keep it short and sweet here. First, congrats to everyone, especially Nate for the 1-2 combo, Kat on top 5, the rest of the top 10 (all legends in their own right), and the newer people in the top 20 and 30, I did notice! I did not read almost anything this MYM, but I was still proud to see what people accomplished. As far as my own set goes, I was pretty happy with how Dozle did; all things considered, it was a great result. While it technically ends like an 18 MYM run of the top 10, I’m also relieved I no longer have to worry about keeping that up. All good things must come to an end, after all. Plus, thirteenth, evil villain, that’s pretty fitting.

I’m taking a break from things and mostly just making this post for anyone wondering what’s going on there. I’ve been having a few setbacks and want to focus on my personal life for a while.

 

[Zakawer2]

Nobody voted for my Daisy set...

Maybe it's because it's too normal compared to some of the stuff you folks pull out? A lot of your sets seem like they'd be far too complicated to play effectively, take too much development time to include, or be too impractical for modders to add to the game.

 

[n88]

Yeah, MYM has pretty degenerate tastes and tends to favor concepts that get a little wild.

"Too complex to play" is definitely an issue we bump up against sometimes, heh. Some of us push the envelope harder than others. I personally take a lot of influence from ArcSys fighters and tend to lean on those as my guideposts for where things start to get a little too complex and where things are demented-but-learnable. I think in any contest there are usually a few generally popular sets where I do like the ideas, but feel the execution makes the set into something too complex to really work as-described.

On the "too much devtime/hard for modders" front, that definitely isn't something that's ever carried a ton of weight in MYM. I usually have moments when I'm writing where I consider that angle and think "well if I were actually coding this I'd probably simplify X or leave Y out". But it's not an issue to be unrealistically ambitious because... y'know, "purely hypothetical writing contest" is a good outlet for that kind of thing? I think the contest would lose a lot of charm if you had people toning down ideas for that reason.

There's a specific genre of moveset that we see pretty regularly that is... "very normal/realistic pitch for a reasonable newcomer or reworked veteran". Often these'll be the first moveset someone submits to the contest and they usually don't do too hot come contest's end. Daisy's one, I'd also shout out Waluigi and Ganondorf as sets of that stripe in MYM26. Waaaay back in the Brawl era I rolled up to MYM6 with a Rosalina moveset and absolutely failed to make the splash I assumed I would, so I relate.

All of those sets accomplish what they set out to, IMO. Well, maybe not my MYM6 Rosalina set, I was pretty dumb as a kid and she's a lot less functional than those more modern examples. But it's hard for sets like that to get traction come voting time in MYM because a lot of people gravitate toward stuff that's more mechanically/conceptually interesting to them. Not to say there aren't successful MYM sets that keep things pretty clean - it usually takes a lot of polish to sell people on a more realistic/toned-down pitch though.

 

[n88]

MYM27 is up, folks. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here.