I made 1st out of 73 in singles at AlfaCollusion VI yesterday. Every corner of Ohio was representing there + some Indiana.
I finally got the Rosalina bracket! It also happened to be the top PR bracket but still. My top 32 bracket was:
Spicer
(2-0), Kel
(2-0), Fumbles
(2-0), Fizzle
(2-0), Mister Eric
(Winners Finals (Loss 2-3)), Fumbles
(Losers Finals (Win 3-0)), Mister Eric
(Grand Finals (Win 3-0, 3-0))
I played like I usually have in winners just to play comfortably so, as always, Eric & I had a last game, last stock set. But in Losers I switched my playstyle to an experimental Frankenstein playstyle I've been theorizing about using Brawl MK air footies while forcing mistakes via switching between walking on platforms and tomahawk pokes from dashing off said platforms and going far more aggro than I'm usually comfortable with. I spent roughly half of my time on platforms, poking at the opponent from above. There was a point in one match that I juggled ROB for at least 15 seconds straight. It was different but it all felt right when put together...and I still can't believe it worked as well as it did.
After those sets, I feel like I've been playing MK wrong...again. I think I overvalued my defensive playstyle with him and undervalued how great a more aggro MK can be so long as I'm actively thinking while using him; and there's a definite difference between adapting and thinking in Smash and I'm only just starting to get it.
I picked up Pac-Man a few weeks back to help me learn get better at frame traps and thinking on my feet. I only use him in friendlies and Anther's Ladder ofc but I think a pocket Pac-Man is really healthy for any Smasher since being decent with Pac requires you to be thinking constantly and adapting not only to playstyles and player habits, but also to mid-match character movement. I also picked up Lucina for that same set of reasons.
At EVO, I realized that I was good at MK, I was good at Charizard, Mega Man, or w/e pocket character I might have, I was good at characters
but I wasn't good at Smash. Playing against players that have been around since early Melee or even early Brawl made me notice that their thought was different than mine. When I played ZeRo, HBox, Abadango, and even Tweek for as young as he is, it slowly started to click that "oh, they aren't looking for the things I'm looking at, they're looking at a lot more than that." I was looking for
moves to punish because I know frame data for almost every character; again, I'm good at
characters. But I wasn't using deliberate spacing and movement to force openings or even thinking well on the fly. I was using raw reactions & predictions while playing defensively thinking "You'll slip up eventually!" and that's just not how Smash is played. The fact I got as far as #1 on Ohio PR without realizing that blows my god damn mind. But now that I realize that, I'm working on it, and I'm already seeing the results, I'm excited.
