MELEE NEEDS A STRONGER CANADIAN SCENE

[Mystic Dragon]

I've come to realize while looking at tournaments in Canada very few seem to show up, except nationals that come once in a while.I've only seen brawl weeklies and once in a while project m in Toronto. What are all your thoughts on this and what can be done to bring up the canadian community?

 

[Massive]

I think the Canadian scene is actually pretty strong, all things considered.
The entire country has less people living in it than California, but spread out over an area larger than the United States.

They have the same problem the midwestern US has, just magnified. Also, some people also speak French there (neat?).

Anyway, If you want the scene to be stronger, you need to start to build everything up:

• Have more casual weeklies and practice events to make new players feel more comfortable.
  
• Encourage/fund travel so more good players get exposure outside of their communities.
• Stream as much stuff as possible, make art, make movies, make people want to join the scene.
• Host larger events that attract good players and come up with ways to encourage big name (US and otherwise) players to attend.
• Be inclusive. Smash 4, PM, 64, and even Brawl players are all quite capable of entering melee tournaments. Melee is definitely the main event, but there are high quality players in every game who may just not have gotten into melee yet, and having a bracket for them to shine in can plant the seeds of melee awesome in their heads.

Most of all, good luck, and don't give up. If you and your community are willing to work, all of this stuff is attainable.

 

[AirFair]

Canada has some strong players lol

n0ne's falcon is so good tho. Canada is strong, but could be bigger I guess.

 

[Spak]

Yeah, McSmashter 4 showed me how good Canada actually can be. Sure it's not the USA with bald eagles circling in the sky and Corvettes doing doughnuts, but Canada has a much better scene than most of Europe and Asia.

I'd even dare to say that the Melee scene in Canada is infinity times better than the scene in Antarctica.

 

[AirFair]

Antarctica? no way man. Have you SEEN the IC's mains over there. My god.

 

[kingPiano]

Before Canada can flourish in the Melee scene you guys need to take back Justin Bieber and Howie Mandel first.

 

[1MachGO]

Before Canada can flourish in the Melee scene you guys need to take back Justin Bieber and Howie Mandel first.

Don't forget Nickelback.

 

[Spak]

Don't forget Nickelback.

I'm fine with Nickelback staying. Green Day can go back, though; they broke their tradition of releasing a good album (with a few good singles) once every 10 years.

 

[dahuterschuter]

I saw a video of M2K in Fredericton once. Only thing I've ever heard of a Smash scene in NB.

 

[steakhouse]

I thought Toronto had a pair of weeklies, one from EMG and one by projectTO (Salt on Smash Street) ?

In Montreal we're fine af, 4 weekly events (one for each game minus brawl), a large regional coming up in may, and we just got out of a really stacked tournament season with polybash, lan ETS and McSmashter.

As long as you don't live in Alberta (and even then that's where the masked Falcomaster3000 slaughtered everyone) you'll find a good smash scene.

 

[SAUS]

Are you in the Ontario facebook group? I'm pretty sure you live in the strongest Canadian region (says you are in Toronto). There's also 2 big tournaments coming up in May - Toryuken and Get On My Level 2.

 

[steakhouse]

I'm pretty sure you live in the strongest Canadian region (says you are in Toronto).

Montreal respectfully disagrees.

or I do and I live in Montreal

 

[SAUS]

Montreal respectfully disagrees.

or I do and I live in Montreal

It's a pretty tough argument when Kirbykaze roflstomps everyone lol. There might be more better players in Montreal, but the best player in Canada is definitely Kirbykaze (who lives in Toronto).

 

[unknown522]

I've come to realize while looking at tournaments in Canada very few seem to show up, except nationals that come once in a while.I've only seen brawl weeklies and once in a while project m in Toronto. What are all your thoughts on this and what can be done to bring up the canadian community?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SmashMeleeOntario/

 

[steakhouse]

Kirbykaze might be the best Melee player in Canada, but the strength of a scene isn't determined by its strongest player, rather by that of its scene as a whole, i.e. the average skill level.

Socal isn't considered the best local scene in the world for having the best players, rather a lot of sooper good ones.

 

[Divinokage]

We're the best in teams, suck it!!

 

[DerpyDayha]

As long as you don't live in Alberta (and even then that's where the masked Falcomaster3000 slaughtered everyone) you'll find a good smash scene.

Wait. I'm in edmonton, and we've got a great smash scene going. We have weeklies for everything (except brawl), a larger event every month or two, and drop-ins almost every day of the week.

And don't even get me started on Calgary. You should check out mittens and quaff, they are both very good albertans (who just happen to be Marth mains lol).

 

[SAUS]

Kirbykaze might be the best Melee player in Canada, but the strength of a scene isn't determined by its strongest player, rather by that of its scene as a whole, i.e. the average skill level.

Socal isn't considered the best local scene in the world for having the best players, rather a lot of sooper good ones.

Okay I can get behind that. I can't judge from this point, since I don't play in either region enough (particularly GTA region). Either way, the OP is in a very strong / active Canadian region.

 

[Sundark]

Shoutouts to you Canadian bros. I'm in Saskatchewan and between Regina and Saskatoon we've got two monthlies and two bi-weeklies that regularly run both Melee and PM. Smash 4 is included at the Saskatoon monthly as well, though I'm not sure about the Regina one. It seems Toon leans a little more towards PM, but other than that Melee is pretty strong.

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

We've got Vwin and Bam... they're pretty good.

The smash scene actually pretty huge here in Montreal Quebec.

So much so that I quit playing melee. I can't keep up with the skill level of most players anymore even though I've been into melee since 2007 lol.

 

[Vorde]

The smash scene actually pretty huge here in Montreal Quebec.
So much so that I quit playing melee. I can't keep up with the skill level of most players anymore even though I've been into melee since 2007 lol.

That's sad to hear. Instead of giving up, you should just practice more tech and get into it. Don't leave something you love behind

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

That's sad to hear. Instead of giving up, you should just practice more tech and get into it. Don't leave something you love behind

I put wayyyy too many hours into melee to get steamrolled by players these days. I'm on point with my techskill, I can wavedash, waveland, shffl, Waveshine, I can combo, I have good DI / Smash DI.... I was a hardcore tournament player back in the ken/isai/pc chris era.

The only people I beat now are scrubs that anybody could 4 stock, there's no satisfaction in that. But the good players? My god. As soon as I get to round 3 winners I'm getting REKT, and I've never made it past losers finals.

There's just way more stuff that people use now that wasn't in play before, shield dropping / options out of shield / Shine grabs / shine out of shield being the ones that I can't do that cause me to suck now.

I used to feel like I was good at melee, and people used to consider me a good player... now all people can say is that I don't know how to shield drop or shine out of shield, or shine-grab so I'll never be good with spacies... and I don't want to bother learning all this new stuff. The hope is dead, I used to watch the top level players in 2007-2008 and say "One day I'll be as good as them!" and now in 2015 players like Ken and PC Chris are considered to be terrible at the game in comparison to many many smashers. I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I do not have the talent or ability to compete in todays ssbm meta... the skill gap is too big and I have no way to close it since I have a job, 2 kids to take care of, and no time to waste 5 hours practicing melee skills.

it's all good I don't need to play melee to enjoy it, I watch all the top level tournaments.

For my fighting game fix I have switched over to Mortal Kombat X which the guys who run the smash weekly are also going to host on a different day... I'm hyped!

 

[Massive]

@ Dylan_Tnga
I'm an old-school player too, I was at my peak interest at level around 2005-2008, where I'd invest 4-8 hours per day into practice.
I don't have teenager reflexes anymore so I can't really play modern spacies either, but I have managed to stay competitively good and improve in the modern meta.

Most newer "good" players have no idea how to handle real zoning, shield pressure, or mindgames. They tend to fall into practiced routines that make them incredibly predictable past a certain point, even if their technical routines are very effective. If you can get past the technical barriers (which requires more repetitive techskill practice, but not as much as you'd think) you can use some of that old-school thinking to shut them down and let their inexperience start to work against them.

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

@ Dylan_Tnga
I'm an old-school player too, I was at my peak interest at level around 2005-2008, where I'd invest 4-8 hours per day into practice.
I don't have teenager reflexes anymore so I can't really play modern spacies either, but I have managed to stay competitively good and improve in the modern meta.

Most newer "good" players have no idea how to handle real zoning, shield pressure, or mindgames. They tend to fall into practiced routines that make them incredibly predictable past a certain point, even if their technical routines are very effective. If you can get past the technical barriers (which requires more repetitive techskill practice, but not as much as you'd think) you can use some of that old-school thinking to shut them down and let their inexperience start to work against them.

Yeah, I was thinking that if I do go to a weekly in the future I'm going to drop fox. I think because I have a great understanding of mindgames and how people think that I could do very well with shiek since there is a very low techskill compared to spacies. Or possibly I could go Marth and out space them, I'm good enough with Marth to do short hop double fairs and stuff like that, so it could work.