I got introduced to competitive Smash since Brawl (but also played some competitive Melee). I do intend to play more ranked matches or go to tournaments for Ultimate more than any game before, but for different purposes than winning. My intent of playing the Smash series is
TO BE THE MOST OPTIMAL I could possibly be with my favorite characters, but
NOT TO BECOME THE BEST OR TO WIN TOURNAMENTS. I feel like becoming the best at a character puts a lot of stress into Smashers, and I don't want to have to deal with that pressure of constantly getting harassed or blamed for poor performance and results. My goal as a Smasher is just to BECOME REALLY GOOD AND OPTIMAL with my favorite fighters, but not necessarily the best. I prefer to play Smash competitively, and I also like to play for fun (kinda have the best of both worlds), but in order for me to balance both, I don't like to have a lot of characters, which leads to my next point.
In competitive Smash, most people will tell me that it's best to focus on
not more than 3 fighters, with
2 being considered (by the majority) to be the most optimal. While I agree myself, I can't help myself to feel like playing three fighters just bc of one mode in Smash Ultimate that might be viable in competitive play:
SQUAD STRIKE. At the same time, my goal is to be optimal, which means I tend to focus on less characters as possible. So right now, I'm stuck on a
dilemma of playing either 2 or 3 characters (regardless of the option, I'm still gonna focus on one character at a time). So I made a list of pros and cons that I feel of either option:
Having 2 fighters over 3 (Pros): + more time allocated to each, can cover MUs perfectly fine with two (but it depends), optimal, still fine for Squad Strike
Cons: - slightly more redundant, some MUs are bad for both
Having 3 fighters over 2 (Pros): + more character variety, perfect for Squad Strike, can cover more MUs
Cons: - less time for each, tend to spread too much, may be unnecessary
Even with the 3 fighters option, I still plan to focus on just two of them and leave the third one as a secondary for warm-up or fundamentals.
Finally, these are the characters that I'm the most interested in for Ultimate:
(Honorable mentions:
). I know it's not a lot, but since it's Ultimate, I want to only consider my favorite fighters in Smash history (i.e veterans that I enjoy in every single Smash iteration, and only 3 characters qualify for this for my case) and some newcomers to limit myself while also having options.