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Stories From SEA: Reflections With L1NK, The Philippine's Melee Champion



Last October 24, the Philippine's largest event to date, ESGS Brawlfest occurred. With 32+ and 50+ players in the brackets for Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. 4, the attendee list comprised of some of the country's best players.

Earlier this year, we sat down with long time Super Smash Bros. Melee veteran Myk "Playbook Elite | L1NK" Villaflor as part of our coverage on the Asian scene. Due to conflicts with the Summer Of Smash, it's release was postponed.

Now that he has won ESGS Brawlfest and established himself as the country's best, here is Smashboards' interview with him about his reflections on his history with the game and how it connects with the present scene.
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Popi: Hey Myk! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview. A lot of people call you a "Stone Age" Smasher. How exactly did you get into the game?

L1NK: When I was a kid, like 6-7 years old, I met and became really good friends with my neighbor Mitch. We'd play every game together. Eventually he introduced Smash 64 to me.

We got addicted to the game. It was fresh, and different from every fighting game we played. I also found out that it was something I'm quite good at because it didn't require many button inputs and winning relies heavily on environment control and taking advantage of it.

Mitch and I became regular training partners, but we didn't really know it. We only really played the game for fun, and it'd be for hours and hours. Guess who my first character was? As you guessed from my tag, it's Link. Sidenote, I was one of the many people who thought his name was Zelda!

I NEVER changed character in SSB64. Link was my hero.

Popi: Did you settle on your tag from the start?

L1NK: Not yet. There was no nametag system in SSB64 as far as I remember.

Come Melee, Mitch and I played with items for the longest time, until he decided that to stop using items so as to concentrate on our characters when we fought. Along the way we came across new friends, and introduce Smash to them too! Some of these were Giordan Guiyab and Don Abe.

He and I were unstoppable of course, cause we'd been playing the game for so long. We had the confidence that we could beat EVERY Smash player we came across.

Mitch was particular with the record system. Because well yeah, it shows our statistics, wins, losses, KO's and what not of every character. His concern was, what if we both used Link? That meant that we shared our records.

That's when we discovered the name system. Yes, this was after a few thousand matches.

Popi: Did you and Mitch find other Smashers to play with? Were you two alone most of the time?

L1NK: Mitch and I would strive to get better and better at the game... with just us two. It wasn't that long though that he started asking me "you think we're the best at this game?" Of course, I didn't know. However, based from my experience at that time, we never lost to anyone we played against, to any random friend we had, or stranger.

Mitch felt content about it.. but I wasn't. I was thinking, "Hey there are so many people out there! Maybe somebody can prove us wrong."

I made my own quest to search for fellow Smashers.

Popi: Interesting! How did this go for you?

L1NK: I'd ask everyone if they knew anyone who played Melee. Most of them said no, and for the few that did play, or that they knew someone, they'd eventually eat their own words. You could tell by the way they talk about Smash, if they knew what they were doing, or not. At the end, I'd almost always end up disappointed.

I didn't give on looking for players and I found some interesting players within my circle of friends. I challenged them, cause they were bragging and yet again I beat them. They gave this look at each other and then they looked at me with the same stare.

"You should fight our friend." I asked who, and they said: "You should fight David."

Popi: David van Hoven, the 2nd runner up at last year's ESGS Smash 4 tournament?


David van Hoven or Bulalolz as Myk calls him.

L1NK
: The one and only. I wasn't friends with him yet. I had this adrenaline rush.... like my thirst for competition was finally going to get quenched! At the moment, I was like: "I HAVE to fight this Dave guy!"

The stage was set. I was waiting in the room and this Caucasian dude comes in and introduced himself as Dave. He seemed nice, but he had this air about him.

I found out the meaning of "nerve wracking" when we entered character selection. He chose a character I never expected, Jigglypuff! At this time I finally made the transition to Falco. Well, not really a transition. Link was still my main but I had an equally good Falco already.

We played. No items, 5 stocks and any stage. I managed to beat his Jigglypuff badly. He realized that it was a mistake to bring out his Puff and then he finally brought out his Sheik. It was a toe to toe battle. I had never fought an aggressive player like him before. Although the matches were really close, I won.

Everyone, including Dave was in awe. At the time, NO ONE had beaten Dave when he was serious. He even beat someone blindfolded!

Popi: How did the Southern Melee Smashers grow from this?

L1NK: To recap, this was around 2005. It wasn't long before word began to spread that I beat Dave. Eventually someone approached me. He was from my year level, and also from De La Salle Zobel School. It was none other than the scene's "Mister Muscles", George Schulze.


George Schulze himself.

I was surprised that George played Smash! He really didn't look like the type. I mean he's a bodybuilder, he does theater stuff, singing. When he'd caught wind of the news from two of my friends who introduced me to Dave... my friends told me that someone new wanted to challenge me.

We go to character select and to my surprise, he chose Link. Link was my pride. I couldn't let anyone best me at my own character. No items, 5 stocks, Final Destination. It was a strict rule I learned from George. He never wanted to play on any other stages. We went toe to toe but I defeated him.

Popi: Was this the beginning of the famous Southern trifecta?

L1NK: The truth is, George replaced Mitch. The original trifecta was Mitch, Dave, and I. After some time, Mitch just... disappeared. I haven't been able to contact him in a while.

Popi: Well, that's sad to hear. How did the community go from there? Did it grow or wane?

L1NK: What grew was the frequency of our Smash gatherings. I was the only one among my friends who was really interested in looking for others or at least, actively looking for other players.

After a week or two from a night where the three of us played, Mitch called me up and asked me to come over his place. He said he wanted to show me something Smash related. It was a YouTube video of this really fast Donkey Kong destroying a Fox. I told Mitch it was just lightning Melee, but he told me that it wasn't.


He showed me Wak's AHTP (Advanced How To Play). After that, I'd end up sleeping 4AM just to practice the the stuff on the video.

Popi: One of the myths surrounding you is that you went to the US and defeated a region's best players. Is that true?

L1NK: Yes. Summer came, and my mom wanted to bring us to the States. With all this competitive spirit I had, I took this as an opportunity. We didn't go to any big city though. We went to the state of Tennessee.... it was a countryside.


Let's Play Cafe in Tennessee

One day I asked my cousins if they knew about Smash, and if they knew a place where people played it. They brought me to this computer shop, it's called "Let's Play Cafe".. it was pretty big! Unfortunately it was a school day, and no one was there.

I personally spoke to the shop keeper to see if I could find anything. I asked him if they do Melee here, and he said yes. Also asked him if there's a chance people will come in to play, but he said most likely not because it was a school day.

"I'm from the Philippines, and it's hard to find people to play with." I said. He got excited, so he did me a big favor and started making calls. He told me they'd be over shortly. Not long after, an African-American dude, and a Caucasian dude came in the shop. "We're here" they said.

The shopkeeper set up everything for us. It was REALLY exciting, it was my very first match against someone abroad and he was supposedly THE best one around Tennessee!

I whipped out my Falco, and he chose Luigi. He wasn't really strict with the rules so we played with no items, 5 stock, and any stage. Game one on Hyrule Temple, I beat his Luigi with a 3 stock lead. It was his turn to choose the stage. On Final Destination, I won it again, but with a smaller advantage. Then I won, and I won.

After beating him, I realized how much potential anyone here can have as players. I mean sure he wasn't as good as the better players in the US but you have to consider that we can beat other people outside our land.

Popi: Going back locally, what was the scene like when you returned?

L1NK: No one was interested in it anymore. No one really chased for a competitive scene. Eventually, they were contented with just Smash Fests at houses. It died out. Brawl came too, but it's hype lasted as long as a Melee match.

Looking back, Melee in the South was never to flourish, but rather it's role was to bring together a group of Smashers that would soon play alongside each other with a newer and fresher Smash 4. I'm happy with the scene we have now and I would never have met Dave, George, JP, Kebo, and other Smashers if it weren't for Melee.
 
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Comments

Great interviews, it was interesting knowing more about these players. There needs to be more interviews with smashers like these guys. These are quite interesting to read tbh.
 
still upset that there is a tournament after i leave Philippines QQ..

grats to top 3 in each game bracket
 
Is it weird that there's alot of top players in Smash who's names are just "Replace a Nintendo Characters name with a number"? Do I need to change my name to 5hulk so I can rank #1 in Melee?
 
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