Link to original post: [drupal=1095]My trip to the State of Independence (or the Fall of the Titans)[/drupal]
These events occurred between February 7th and February 10h, 2009. It will be a long post with ups and downs, pretty much sums up all of my trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the State of Independence, from my POV.
At first, I wanted to just explain to the players from the Montreal community what happened to me, they were expecting me to do well, but I decided to write this here instead. I still don't know why, but I will type everything that I can remember on the spot. No one sane should read all of this, but this is how it happened. Timeline.
-friday-
We had left Montreal around sunset. We were riding the Zafmobile as usual; there was Zaf, Kage, Ally, Holy and me. We had practiced over the past weeks for this event, Clash of the Titans 4, that was happening in Philadelphia, and my buddy Zaf had convinced me to go.
I figured I might take some time off from everything that sucks in these hard times. With the current state of economy around the world, I'm sure you've seen a lot more sad faces around. That being said, I decided to accept Zaf's invitation to take a break from my already effed up life to go and have fun. I figured this would be the last time I could have fun before going back to a more serious lifestyle, and get my **** together.
I had high expectations for this event. I was hoping to see some old acquaintances, meet the new batch of smashers that came with Brawl. I would probably get to play melee with a lot of good players too. I knew I would see some peeps from MD/VA that I've known since gamefaqs, smashboards, the boys from team Arlington...
I'd get to see some of my Friends.
So we are driving there, and as usual when you travel long distances with Zaf, a whole lot of stuff happens. We stopped after crossing the Canadian border, and Ally had to buy batteries for his camera. After leaving, we fueled up the car, and he realized the head had fallen off his tiny Solid Snake figurine. We assumed it was a bad omen LOL and that M2K would decapitate him with a dimensional cape >_> but after a random dog came and we fed him the rest of Zaf's chicken burger. The dog was soooo cool! But as we were leaving the dog was either rolling around in the snow, or was experiencing epilepsy for the first time, thanks to McDonald's...
That being said, the trip took about 8 hours as we had gotten lost for half an hour (and people say Montreal is hard to drive in? yeah right!). Also, the heating was broken, and there's a gap in the door that creates a draft that makes it kinda cold. We were used to the car though lol we had sleeping bags covering us, but I had the front passenger seat next to the gap, and my feet were freezing off, it hurt like a *****! lol we're such troopers, I swear.
We get to ChiboSempai's place, and honestly I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know anything as I left for this tournament. We get there and at first I didn't see Chibo so I couldn't really thank him for hosting us. It was a nice looking apartment, living room, kitchen, bedroom, and he had a roommate. I assume he attends Dragon university.
That being said, he was housing about 20 people or so in a tiny place. Personally, I thought it was cool that so many people could just get together and play and get to know each other. I didn't feel like playing that night, so instead I just watched Kage's Ike get ***** by M2K for a bit, and then I went to bed. It was very cramped, but whatever game you play, smash or street fighter, we always find a way to have fun with the people around you, and it was very cool of Chibo to house all these people.
-saturday-
The day of the tournament. We get there around 11 am I guess? I don't know, but we get on site and it's a really cool place. There was even a giant dragon statue nearby, and I ate some Wawa for the first time (in b4 "you never ate poon?! LOL" from chillin). I look around, talk to a few peeps a bit, then they ask us to exit and make a line so they can take registrations. As we get to the front, we have a chat with Cactuar, then Zaf and me register for teams and singles.
We go in and play friendlies together, then against a few people. Santi and Dojo come and play with us a bit, they were mad impressive. Also, broken arrow has to be the best smash team name up to now when it comes to Brawl. After I just walked around waiting for stuff to start, and played melee with Scar, Kage, Tuar and the others. That was at the beginning of the afternoon I guess.
I think doubles pools started around 6:30 pm (and to be honest, most people I spoke to said it started muuuuch later). Not sure, but I think most of the pools (for singles at least) we're done by hand, and not with a program with correct seeding and location repartition. I heard about NY crew members being bunched up in the same pool, whereas some other pools were completely imbalanced. Blackwaltz agreed with me: in our pool, at least half of the players had the skill to be first seed in a balanced pool, as we were all qualified and experienced players.
Someone was telling me (perhaps it was Turbo?) that the pools were done by one person, who barely knew who was good and from where. If anything, that shouldn't happen. If you want to do pools by hand, you must take account of who comes from where and how good they are, or else people get screwed over. If anything, get people from different regions to help you establish seeding. It's not that hard. Besides, tons of people offered to help at the tournament, but the closest kind of greeting these people got was "please stay behind the tournament organizers' desk". GG. Ok I'm lying, they probably didn't tell them that, but I did hear it a lot though, it sounded professional.
To be honest I really suck in brawl teams lol we never play them, and the way people get knocked into forces you to combo differently than in melee. That being said, even though Zaf was playing incredibly well that day, and even made a 3 stock comeback with his MK against Azen and Chu in friendlies by doing 5 kills total, I played like crap, and we didn't make it out of pools. I felt sorry for him, but we're a team and a good teammate knows how to share defeat. We learned from our errors (read: we have to play more teams matches lol), and we took that as a good eye opener. Anyway I am a good player in the game, so I knew I would probably do well in singles.
The singles pools started around 11pm I suppose, I only had time to play 2 sets on saturday night, and then we had to leave the venue around midnight. We walked back to chibo's place, and we chatted for a while with most people, then I just passed out because I was kinda tired and I wanted to do well the next day anyway. Also if I play too much, I get worse. Oh yeah, and that philly cheesesteak was soooo good.
-sunday-
The big day. The day that I was waiting for. Objectives: get top 10, prove that MK is beatable, maybe turn some heads.
Requirements: Not face any Diddys or ICs.
I woke up at Chibo's at 9:05am. We left soon after, got some grub at Wawa's and arrived around 10am. I chilled with greg, C4, Azen and Eljin for a bit, then I went inside and waited for the brackets to start.
At this point, I don't know what happened, but basically, pool captains (I assume...) were handed their pool results sheet, had to find the players in their pools, had to pick a random tv and play there matches. Basically, a scenario for disaster. Slowly but surely pool matches were getting done. A lot of people from the first day had forfeited already, and didn't even show up. I guess the first two sets were too rough for some of them unfortunately.
Some drama happened during pool matches that caused some commotion, when someone was fooling around with his buddy and unplug two tvs with people playing their sets. As people were kinda irked by this, the protagonist then stated "WHO'S GETTING MAD?!" repeatedly. In my mind I thought of that T.I. picture with the caption "YOU MAD!", but instead I just laughed. Someone asked the protagonist to leave as calmly as they could in the current situation by saying "why don't you just go over there" pointing towards a location further away. Of course, that person was kinda irritated as he was playing a set, but then the protagonist was like "WHY YOU GETTING RED?! WHY YOU ALL UP IN MY FACE?! WHY YOU GETTIN' MAD". After a lot of nonsense brohate, it all escaladed until we were down to a chest bumping staredown that was broken a few moments later. Tension aside, everything went back to normal, and this was an isolated incident that was about 8m away from the T.O. desk, and was resolved with only words (thankfully). I was really surprised to see how long it took for a T.O. to come and break this, but from what I remember, I think this was split up by other players.
So then pools were done, people were disappointed, partners didn't make it out of pools, some buddies from Toronto didn't pass either. It was sad, but I had no time to feel bad, I had to pump myself up before the tournament. I played a bit with zaf, and they started calling the bracket matches. I think it was around 6:30pm again? Someone would have to confirm the time. I decided to just walk around and watch people play, think up strats for different character matchups, etc. I was really focused and ready.
The best moment of the tournament had arrived, the singles bracket. I waited for my match to be called out, I spoke to Ambrose and he had won his second match. "wait what? you played two sets?". Ya he had won his second round set in winners brackets. So I was kinda worried, maybe I hadn't heard my name...
I went to the front desk, and asked them if they had called me yet. "what is your name?". chesterr01 (*****). "... I can't find you." Ok, so.... wait I'm not in the brackets? I made sure to inform him that I got second in my pool, so they inform Chibo and he checks the notepad with all the top 3 players of each pool that made it to brackets.
Turns out, they simply didn't write my name down, and they bumped up position 3 and 4. Also, I heard 2 other people were in the same position as me. So I waited, and eventually they told me that I should fight the person that Santi should be fighting. They direct me to Umbra who I had met an hour earlier or so, he was a really good peach player in melee and we teamed together and had a pretty good win streak. Pretty chill, didn't talk much though, but I thought he was cool.
Anyway, I assumed he played Peach so I went Marth, but he went MK. Luckily, I know the MK match up really well, so I land a spike during his up+B, he does some crazy MK edgeguard stuff, I win the match, it was a good match. He goes on Halberd, and I'm like immediately picking Fox cuz he's my best counterpick against MK, and turns out he played Pikachu. =/ So I get around grabs for as much as I can while staying on the offense, but he did grab me and get his 60-70 % chain grabs on me every stock, but it was still close, as I could rack up damage before dying. Last stock, high %, lose the match.
I counterpick smashville. He picks Kirby, and I went Marth. We're on our last stock, and I have a 60% lead, it was a great set, and I pretty much have this set locked down since my counterpick was effective enough. It's all about momentum. It's all about to end when SUDDENLY: "stop this match! you are playing the wrong opponent". A blind man could have read the "WHAT?!" expression on our faces. I shed a figurative tear, shook Umbra's hand, told him it was a great set nonetheless, and moved on to play another player, who went by a similar name.
I was so shook I didn't even get to talk to the next opponent, he just put on his headphones, and we played. It was a pit player, called PenUmbra (see the similarity). He was good, even won match number 1 by stage spiking my marth at 40%. I went Fox game two and figured out his patterns, I was calling his actions seconds in advance at the end of the second match by charging forward smashes with Fox when he was on the ledge because he would always ledgehop into airdodge. He got klaptrapped twice on his counterpick after. Too bad, I would have liked to fight PenUmbra properly, but his life was ended prematurely. That being said, I had won my first round of winners.
Holy was sent in losers and had to play a match, and so did Ally, but we were all hungry. We went to the Tournament Organizers desk, Ally Holy Zaf and me, and we all asked them if we could, all 4 of us, go eat and come back to play our matches after. We made sure to say our names clearly, and they said "yes you can". We walk go Wawa's again (don't you love Wawa's? I want Wawa in Canada) and we eat on the way back. We enter the room and I tell zaf to go figure out what is my next match while I go get fruit punch from my bag.
"chet, you've been double DQ'd".
"I've been what?"
Yes, I had been double DQ'd, no questions asked. I was supposed to face HRnut, and when I came back, he was playing his next match against spammer, and a lot of people were watching. What about losers, well they already awarded the victory to Deez. I was not happy about this, but I couldn't complain about the winners match, this tournament was already so late.
zaf asked Chibo what was going on with the match with Deez since we didn't know if he was playing or not. Chibo never came back to give me an explanation. At this point, I had been let down. My hopes, as well as the faith that my friends put into me, had been killed in the egg. I didn't even get the chance to rise up against a real opponent. I was defeated by poor logistics.
After this, I sulked next to Kage and Cactuar for a while, trying to figure out what had just happened. I walked out of the room after a while, and realized that I wasn't the only one with issues. A lot of people had been screwed over.
Since the tournament took so long, some people have lost games to people on saturday night who have not shown up the next day. Result: 2-0 wins for everyone else in the pool. If pools were done all at the same time, we would have had a lot less forfeits the next day, and some people could have evaded an unfortunate elimination because of that (like my partner zaf for example).
I heard people complain everywhere. It was generalized disappointment. Then for some reason, we go check the brackets to see what's going on and Chu had won against Ally. No wait, Ally was with me at that moment, what did he say... something like "what is that, I didn't even play Chu!". No what kinda of organization is that? At that point, I was furious because of the incompetence displayed. I had to leave the room to literally cool down.
I stayed out of the venue until DKSmash came out. I had missed it, but apparently there was a moneyback chant going on inside lol. And then icing on the cake, SECURITY GUARD FOR TOP TIER, even better than ally and chu. We got owned in Canada by Security Guard rent-a-cops too one time. It's really lame.
Everyone was forced to leave. We were past rental time. There was I think around 20 players left in brackets at that time. more than 3000 dollars undistributed yet. A lot of us were in trouble because of this.
At this moment, it was the frustration bottled up that exploded. It was a whole community, sick of botched events and weak organization that stood up and said "we won't take none of this".
I'm not saying that DKSmash was right by starting that chant, but the tournament ended in an unsightly fashion. You get a lot of pissed off people together, and people start regretting things. I even started flaming Chibo like everyone else, but considering out it ended, he probably feels the worst in all of this. I haven't even read his posts of apologies yet. I'm not one to hold grudges, but I'm one that never forgets, because forgotten mistakes are doomed to be repeated. Someone dropped the ball at Clash of the Titans 4.
We all went back to Chibo's place, but it was too crowded. I decided to stay outside his house until more people had left. You could barely move a foot in there, so I stayed in zaf's car after paying my regards to SamuraiPanda. He did a great job in handling this, as well as Santi. These two guys are absolutely awesome, and they deserve a gold star. I went up towards the end to cheer my crewmate when he was playing vs M2K, as many people had left. Right before, I chilled in the hallway with Turbo, DKSmash, greg and CashMooney. Anyway, ally did well but it wasn't enough. We'll get a more solid strat next time. If it works, Ally will get the upper hand. I'll help him, and I'll also get to training his Falcon in Melee.
I have travelled for FC6, OC2, FCD and OC3, and everytime, I would come back tired, but with tons of good memories that outweighed the bad stuff that can happen in a trip. For the first time, I was coming back home and felt like I had been let down. I felt empty. I felt like I was not given the opportunity to enjoy myself while playing. I had attended this event as a ghost. Hadn't played many friendlies, just watched people play. People asked me to play afterwards, like Wes and I wanted to play with all the top players, but I had to decline when asked. My love for this game was compromised because I felt like my peers were betrayed as well.
I've been playing competitive smash for 6 years now, traveling, helping people online and offline, I helped the community, I've modded the Canadian threads for a while, I have seen a lot of things happen, but this, has got to be one of the darkest chapters in smash history.
If it was just me, I would have probably been pissed, and shut up, and just moved on, but this time it was totally different. This time, I felt like the whole community had taken a huge hit. I am never angry. Ever. If I dislike something, or something annoys me or pisses me off, I can think enough to realize that most of the time, there's no reason to be angry.
For the first time in a long time, I was angry. I was silent for a long time towards the end of the tournament, but then I realized where this anger came from.
The anger I was feeling was the anger of the community.
We were let down.
It was around 5:30 am I think when the tournament ended. Ally was tired, but people were still asking friendlies. After playing a few games, we finally left. zaf hadn't slept much, but we couldn't stay at Chibo's for various reasons so we drove for a few hours until we decided to sleep in the car behind a gas station. At 11am, we had to get a jump start. I'm stupid and listened to the radio in zaf's car during most of the time that the tournament was finishing at Chibo's, and drained the battery probably. -.-
Anyway after all that, we still were laughing in the car after. I was still happy that I had gone just because I have met so many new people, and seen so many familiar faces (****, I didn't even realize Dire was standing in front of me until I saw that red GaW with the tag XD). In the end, it was a harsh experience, but I still got some positive from it. Overall, it was still a big disappointment. Overall, it was overhype. Do I have the right to say I was robbed? Well in a way I was... but I don't know if this judgement is legit.
I'll come back to the states soon. I'll repay for my venue fee, and registration fees. Hopefully this time, I'll be able to play and lose the right way, by playing against someone who shares a common interest with me. I won't be defeated by poor logistics again. No player should have to go through this, pro, scrub, noob, amateur, nobody.
Wow I typed a lot. I'm pretty much done.
P.S.: Also, american milk tastes different than canadian milk. It seems to contain a lot more fat than canadian milk. Oh yeah, and zaf tried to prove me that it is possible to drink a gallon of milk in a short span of time while driving us back to Montreal. That was also after ingesting an angry triple whopper at Burger King. I'm telling you, the video is hilarious, but it's not a pretty sight xD. He had to pullover to puke his guts out a few streets away from Ally's , and Ally took a video. Probably the best "I told you so!" moment of my life.
These events occurred between February 7th and February 10h, 2009. It will be a long post with ups and downs, pretty much sums up all of my trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the State of Independence, from my POV.
At first, I wanted to just explain to the players from the Montreal community what happened to me, they were expecting me to do well, but I decided to write this here instead. I still don't know why, but I will type everything that I can remember on the spot. No one sane should read all of this, but this is how it happened. Timeline.
-friday-
We had left Montreal around sunset. We were riding the Zafmobile as usual; there was Zaf, Kage, Ally, Holy and me. We had practiced over the past weeks for this event, Clash of the Titans 4, that was happening in Philadelphia, and my buddy Zaf had convinced me to go.
I figured I might take some time off from everything that sucks in these hard times. With the current state of economy around the world, I'm sure you've seen a lot more sad faces around. That being said, I decided to accept Zaf's invitation to take a break from my already effed up life to go and have fun. I figured this would be the last time I could have fun before going back to a more serious lifestyle, and get my **** together.
I had high expectations for this event. I was hoping to see some old acquaintances, meet the new batch of smashers that came with Brawl. I would probably get to play melee with a lot of good players too. I knew I would see some peeps from MD/VA that I've known since gamefaqs, smashboards, the boys from team Arlington...
I'd get to see some of my Friends.
So we are driving there, and as usual when you travel long distances with Zaf, a whole lot of stuff happens. We stopped after crossing the Canadian border, and Ally had to buy batteries for his camera. After leaving, we fueled up the car, and he realized the head had fallen off his tiny Solid Snake figurine. We assumed it was a bad omen LOL and that M2K would decapitate him with a dimensional cape >_> but after a random dog came and we fed him the rest of Zaf's chicken burger. The dog was soooo cool! But as we were leaving the dog was either rolling around in the snow, or was experiencing epilepsy for the first time, thanks to McDonald's...
That being said, the trip took about 8 hours as we had gotten lost for half an hour (and people say Montreal is hard to drive in? yeah right!). Also, the heating was broken, and there's a gap in the door that creates a draft that makes it kinda cold. We were used to the car though lol we had sleeping bags covering us, but I had the front passenger seat next to the gap, and my feet were freezing off, it hurt like a *****! lol we're such troopers, I swear.
We get to ChiboSempai's place, and honestly I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know anything as I left for this tournament. We get there and at first I didn't see Chibo so I couldn't really thank him for hosting us. It was a nice looking apartment, living room, kitchen, bedroom, and he had a roommate. I assume he attends Dragon university.
That being said, he was housing about 20 people or so in a tiny place. Personally, I thought it was cool that so many people could just get together and play and get to know each other. I didn't feel like playing that night, so instead I just watched Kage's Ike get ***** by M2K for a bit, and then I went to bed. It was very cramped, but whatever game you play, smash or street fighter, we always find a way to have fun with the people around you, and it was very cool of Chibo to house all these people.
-saturday-
The day of the tournament. We get there around 11 am I guess? I don't know, but we get on site and it's a really cool place. There was even a giant dragon statue nearby, and I ate some Wawa for the first time (in b4 "you never ate poon?! LOL" from chillin). I look around, talk to a few peeps a bit, then they ask us to exit and make a line so they can take registrations. As we get to the front, we have a chat with Cactuar, then Zaf and me register for teams and singles.
We go in and play friendlies together, then against a few people. Santi and Dojo come and play with us a bit, they were mad impressive. Also, broken arrow has to be the best smash team name up to now when it comes to Brawl. After I just walked around waiting for stuff to start, and played melee with Scar, Kage, Tuar and the others. That was at the beginning of the afternoon I guess.
I think doubles pools started around 6:30 pm (and to be honest, most people I spoke to said it started muuuuch later). Not sure, but I think most of the pools (for singles at least) we're done by hand, and not with a program with correct seeding and location repartition. I heard about NY crew members being bunched up in the same pool, whereas some other pools were completely imbalanced. Blackwaltz agreed with me: in our pool, at least half of the players had the skill to be first seed in a balanced pool, as we were all qualified and experienced players.
Someone was telling me (perhaps it was Turbo?) that the pools were done by one person, who barely knew who was good and from where. If anything, that shouldn't happen. If you want to do pools by hand, you must take account of who comes from where and how good they are, or else people get screwed over. If anything, get people from different regions to help you establish seeding. It's not that hard. Besides, tons of people offered to help at the tournament, but the closest kind of greeting these people got was "please stay behind the tournament organizers' desk". GG. Ok I'm lying, they probably didn't tell them that, but I did hear it a lot though, it sounded professional.
To be honest I really suck in brawl teams lol we never play them, and the way people get knocked into forces you to combo differently than in melee. That being said, even though Zaf was playing incredibly well that day, and even made a 3 stock comeback with his MK against Azen and Chu in friendlies by doing 5 kills total, I played like crap, and we didn't make it out of pools. I felt sorry for him, but we're a team and a good teammate knows how to share defeat. We learned from our errors (read: we have to play more teams matches lol), and we took that as a good eye opener. Anyway I am a good player in the game, so I knew I would probably do well in singles.
The singles pools started around 11pm I suppose, I only had time to play 2 sets on saturday night, and then we had to leave the venue around midnight. We walked back to chibo's place, and we chatted for a while with most people, then I just passed out because I was kinda tired and I wanted to do well the next day anyway. Also if I play too much, I get worse. Oh yeah, and that philly cheesesteak was soooo good.
-sunday-
The big day. The day that I was waiting for. Objectives: get top 10, prove that MK is beatable, maybe turn some heads.
Requirements: Not face any Diddys or ICs.
I woke up at Chibo's at 9:05am. We left soon after, got some grub at Wawa's and arrived around 10am. I chilled with greg, C4, Azen and Eljin for a bit, then I went inside and waited for the brackets to start.
At this point, I don't know what happened, but basically, pool captains (I assume...) were handed their pool results sheet, had to find the players in their pools, had to pick a random tv and play there matches. Basically, a scenario for disaster. Slowly but surely pool matches were getting done. A lot of people from the first day had forfeited already, and didn't even show up. I guess the first two sets were too rough for some of them unfortunately.
Some drama happened during pool matches that caused some commotion, when someone was fooling around with his buddy and unplug two tvs with people playing their sets. As people were kinda irked by this, the protagonist then stated "WHO'S GETTING MAD?!" repeatedly. In my mind I thought of that T.I. picture with the caption "YOU MAD!", but instead I just laughed. Someone asked the protagonist to leave as calmly as they could in the current situation by saying "why don't you just go over there" pointing towards a location further away. Of course, that person was kinda irritated as he was playing a set, but then the protagonist was like "WHY YOU GETTING RED?! WHY YOU ALL UP IN MY FACE?! WHY YOU GETTIN' MAD". After a lot of nonsense brohate, it all escaladed until we were down to a chest bumping staredown that was broken a few moments later. Tension aside, everything went back to normal, and this was an isolated incident that was about 8m away from the T.O. desk, and was resolved with only words (thankfully). I was really surprised to see how long it took for a T.O. to come and break this, but from what I remember, I think this was split up by other players.
So then pools were done, people were disappointed, partners didn't make it out of pools, some buddies from Toronto didn't pass either. It was sad, but I had no time to feel bad, I had to pump myself up before the tournament. I played a bit with zaf, and they started calling the bracket matches. I think it was around 6:30pm again? Someone would have to confirm the time. I decided to just walk around and watch people play, think up strats for different character matchups, etc. I was really focused and ready.
The best moment of the tournament had arrived, the singles bracket. I waited for my match to be called out, I spoke to Ambrose and he had won his second match. "wait what? you played two sets?". Ya he had won his second round set in winners brackets. So I was kinda worried, maybe I hadn't heard my name...
I went to the front desk, and asked them if they had called me yet. "what is your name?". chesterr01 (*****). "... I can't find you." Ok, so.... wait I'm not in the brackets? I made sure to inform him that I got second in my pool, so they inform Chibo and he checks the notepad with all the top 3 players of each pool that made it to brackets.
Turns out, they simply didn't write my name down, and they bumped up position 3 and 4. Also, I heard 2 other people were in the same position as me. So I waited, and eventually they told me that I should fight the person that Santi should be fighting. They direct me to Umbra who I had met an hour earlier or so, he was a really good peach player in melee and we teamed together and had a pretty good win streak. Pretty chill, didn't talk much though, but I thought he was cool.
Anyway, I assumed he played Peach so I went Marth, but he went MK. Luckily, I know the MK match up really well, so I land a spike during his up+B, he does some crazy MK edgeguard stuff, I win the match, it was a good match. He goes on Halberd, and I'm like immediately picking Fox cuz he's my best counterpick against MK, and turns out he played Pikachu. =/ So I get around grabs for as much as I can while staying on the offense, but he did grab me and get his 60-70 % chain grabs on me every stock, but it was still close, as I could rack up damage before dying. Last stock, high %, lose the match.
I counterpick smashville. He picks Kirby, and I went Marth. We're on our last stock, and I have a 60% lead, it was a great set, and I pretty much have this set locked down since my counterpick was effective enough. It's all about momentum. It's all about to end when SUDDENLY: "stop this match! you are playing the wrong opponent". A blind man could have read the "WHAT?!" expression on our faces. I shed a figurative tear, shook Umbra's hand, told him it was a great set nonetheless, and moved on to play another player, who went by a similar name.
I was so shook I didn't even get to talk to the next opponent, he just put on his headphones, and we played. It was a pit player, called PenUmbra (see the similarity). He was good, even won match number 1 by stage spiking my marth at 40%. I went Fox game two and figured out his patterns, I was calling his actions seconds in advance at the end of the second match by charging forward smashes with Fox when he was on the ledge because he would always ledgehop into airdodge. He got klaptrapped twice on his counterpick after. Too bad, I would have liked to fight PenUmbra properly, but his life was ended prematurely. That being said, I had won my first round of winners.
Holy was sent in losers and had to play a match, and so did Ally, but we were all hungry. We went to the Tournament Organizers desk, Ally Holy Zaf and me, and we all asked them if we could, all 4 of us, go eat and come back to play our matches after. We made sure to say our names clearly, and they said "yes you can". We walk go Wawa's again (don't you love Wawa's? I want Wawa in Canada) and we eat on the way back. We enter the room and I tell zaf to go figure out what is my next match while I go get fruit punch from my bag.
"chet, you've been double DQ'd".
"I've been what?"
Yes, I had been double DQ'd, no questions asked. I was supposed to face HRnut, and when I came back, he was playing his next match against spammer, and a lot of people were watching. What about losers, well they already awarded the victory to Deez. I was not happy about this, but I couldn't complain about the winners match, this tournament was already so late.
zaf asked Chibo what was going on with the match with Deez since we didn't know if he was playing or not. Chibo never came back to give me an explanation. At this point, I had been let down. My hopes, as well as the faith that my friends put into me, had been killed in the egg. I didn't even get the chance to rise up against a real opponent. I was defeated by poor logistics.
After this, I sulked next to Kage and Cactuar for a while, trying to figure out what had just happened. I walked out of the room after a while, and realized that I wasn't the only one with issues. A lot of people had been screwed over.
Since the tournament took so long, some people have lost games to people on saturday night who have not shown up the next day. Result: 2-0 wins for everyone else in the pool. If pools were done all at the same time, we would have had a lot less forfeits the next day, and some people could have evaded an unfortunate elimination because of that (like my partner zaf for example).
I heard people complain everywhere. It was generalized disappointment. Then for some reason, we go check the brackets to see what's going on and Chu had won against Ally. No wait, Ally was with me at that moment, what did he say... something like "what is that, I didn't even play Chu!". No what kinda of organization is that? At that point, I was furious because of the incompetence displayed. I had to leave the room to literally cool down.
I stayed out of the venue until DKSmash came out. I had missed it, but apparently there was a moneyback chant going on inside lol. And then icing on the cake, SECURITY GUARD FOR TOP TIER, even better than ally and chu. We got owned in Canada by Security Guard rent-a-cops too one time. It's really lame.
Everyone was forced to leave. We were past rental time. There was I think around 20 players left in brackets at that time. more than 3000 dollars undistributed yet. A lot of us were in trouble because of this.
At this moment, it was the frustration bottled up that exploded. It was a whole community, sick of botched events and weak organization that stood up and said "we won't take none of this".
I'm not saying that DKSmash was right by starting that chant, but the tournament ended in an unsightly fashion. You get a lot of pissed off people together, and people start regretting things. I even started flaming Chibo like everyone else, but considering out it ended, he probably feels the worst in all of this. I haven't even read his posts of apologies yet. I'm not one to hold grudges, but I'm one that never forgets, because forgotten mistakes are doomed to be repeated. Someone dropped the ball at Clash of the Titans 4.
We all went back to Chibo's place, but it was too crowded. I decided to stay outside his house until more people had left. You could barely move a foot in there, so I stayed in zaf's car after paying my regards to SamuraiPanda. He did a great job in handling this, as well as Santi. These two guys are absolutely awesome, and they deserve a gold star. I went up towards the end to cheer my crewmate when he was playing vs M2K, as many people had left. Right before, I chilled in the hallway with Turbo, DKSmash, greg and CashMooney. Anyway, ally did well but it wasn't enough. We'll get a more solid strat next time. If it works, Ally will get the upper hand. I'll help him, and I'll also get to training his Falcon in Melee.
I have travelled for FC6, OC2, FCD and OC3, and everytime, I would come back tired, but with tons of good memories that outweighed the bad stuff that can happen in a trip. For the first time, I was coming back home and felt like I had been let down. I felt empty. I felt like I was not given the opportunity to enjoy myself while playing. I had attended this event as a ghost. Hadn't played many friendlies, just watched people play. People asked me to play afterwards, like Wes and I wanted to play with all the top players, but I had to decline when asked. My love for this game was compromised because I felt like my peers were betrayed as well.
I've been playing competitive smash for 6 years now, traveling, helping people online and offline, I helped the community, I've modded the Canadian threads for a while, I have seen a lot of things happen, but this, has got to be one of the darkest chapters in smash history.
If it was just me, I would have probably been pissed, and shut up, and just moved on, but this time it was totally different. This time, I felt like the whole community had taken a huge hit. I am never angry. Ever. If I dislike something, or something annoys me or pisses me off, I can think enough to realize that most of the time, there's no reason to be angry.
For the first time in a long time, I was angry. I was silent for a long time towards the end of the tournament, but then I realized where this anger came from.
The anger I was feeling was the anger of the community.
We were let down.
It was around 5:30 am I think when the tournament ended. Ally was tired, but people were still asking friendlies. After playing a few games, we finally left. zaf hadn't slept much, but we couldn't stay at Chibo's for various reasons so we drove for a few hours until we decided to sleep in the car behind a gas station. At 11am, we had to get a jump start. I'm stupid and listened to the radio in zaf's car during most of the time that the tournament was finishing at Chibo's, and drained the battery probably. -.-
Anyway after all that, we still were laughing in the car after. I was still happy that I had gone just because I have met so many new people, and seen so many familiar faces (****, I didn't even realize Dire was standing in front of me until I saw that red GaW with the tag XD). In the end, it was a harsh experience, but I still got some positive from it. Overall, it was still a big disappointment. Overall, it was overhype. Do I have the right to say I was robbed? Well in a way I was... but I don't know if this judgement is legit.
I'll come back to the states soon. I'll repay for my venue fee, and registration fees. Hopefully this time, I'll be able to play and lose the right way, by playing against someone who shares a common interest with me. I won't be defeated by poor logistics again. No player should have to go through this, pro, scrub, noob, amateur, nobody.
Wow I typed a lot. I'm pretty much done.
P.S.: Also, american milk tastes different than canadian milk. It seems to contain a lot more fat than canadian milk. Oh yeah, and zaf tried to prove me that it is possible to drink a gallon of milk in a short span of time while driving us back to Montreal. That was also after ingesting an angry triple whopper at Burger King. I'm telling you, the video is hilarious, but it's not a pretty sight xD. He had to pullover to puke his guts out a few streets away from Ally's , and Ally took a video. Probably the best "I told you so!" moment of my life.
.
