The State of Sm4sh articles, goal, and methods

[Zander2Green]

1. Hello Smashboards
2. 
   My tag is Z2G or Zander2Green, and I write the articles titled The State of Sm4sh for Goldper10. State of Sm4sh is an article series looking at the character selection of Smash 4 tournament’s top eight. The reason I’m making this thread is to further explain why I’m creating this content and to address concerns, methods and reasoning that were brought up in the reddit thread about last period’s article.
   
   
   Exactly What is the State of Sm4sh
   
   As said before, I look mostly at character selection. I create graphical representations of characters selected in the top 8 of tournaments with above 30 (changed to 32) people competing. I also look at what characters are winning these tournaments, and compare these to what characters were selected in the top 8. I then comment on trends I’m noticing in the data, compare to last period’s data, and comment on general community opinions in comparison to the data.
   
   
   Why Look at this data
   
   There are two main reasons
   
   1. Because the metagame is new and growing, I want to see trends over a long period of time. I want to see confirmations or denial of the community’s thoughts and share this information.
      
      
   2. I want to create story lines and conversations smashers and commentators can have. For example, some players believe Sheik is best character, but Diddy Kong appears in the top 8 and wins tournaments at a much higher rate than Sheik. I want to know when a ‘shift’ occurs when a character who was used much less than others (like Kirby in my most recent article) starts showing up in greater quantities
      
   With this said, the overall goal of this series is to find trends in the Smash 4 metagame, and start a line of dialogue that community members can have a meaningful discussion about.
   
   A key note here is that this is a form of information that isn't, in a gameplay sense, helpful. This isn't a cleverly disguised tier list (though the data can be helpful in forming tier lists). This is only showing what characters are popular among people who are winning in a broad sense, and it can be used as part of a greater esport dialogue for Smash 4
   
   
   Why Goldper10?
   
   All of these articles are (and will continue to be) published on goldper10.com, where content creators can publish their esports articles freely. I say esports because gp10 has articles for other esports, its biggest pool being League of Legends, the current largest esport. I publish here because we as a community can say “we esports now” but until we join a larger esports community and go into esports spaces we will never be an esport at the same level as LoL, Dota 2, Starcraft, CS:GO, Halo, etc. When Smash was dropped from MLG, that was a huge deal because the community was cut off from a major esports league that gave the game attention not only from smashers, but from other competitive games. Smash Bros is bigger than it has ever been, with big name Melee players being picked up by big name esports organizations. I think that we need to expand the Smash communities reach into broader esports communities so that maybe Smash Bros can be noticed more by other game communities, and share some of the same spaces like IEM, or whatever the next MLG will be. I think that we need to maintain and nurture the Smash community that we currently have as well as expand. Gp10 also wants to expand with more Smash Bros content and I see this as a big opportunity. We’re starting to see EsportsExpress and DailyDot articles on Smash Bros as well. This is big for Smash as it expands into a large esport.
   
   
   With all of that said, the remainder of this post will be about my reasoning and methodology of the State of Sm4sh, and defining the terms I use. I am very open to changing some of my methodology, but I recommend reading through all the methods because I announce a few expansions to the State of Sm4sh that are important to notice.
   
   Data Collection
   
   I gather data strictly from Smash Bros tournament results threads, watching twitch/youtube vods of tournaments listed on Smash Bros, or being at a tournament myself. The important part is that most of my data comes from smashboards. Obviously, this leaves out any data that isn’t on smashboards. A major reason why I look here only is for convenience. I simply cannot go searching on facebook groups, youtube, etc for top eight results. I don’t have the time. I don’t like going through youtube and twitch vods as is. Smashboards is a place most every competitive smasher knows about, visits at some point, and finds tournaments on. I expect it to have the most accurate tournament results threads because it is the central hub of the Smash community. I will likely not change that I get most of my data from smashboards. If you want your tournament recognized in the data, you can message me with the top 8 characters, amount of people, and the challonge bracket, or better yet, add your tournament to the tournament results page with top 8 character data and the amount of people that went to the tournament. That saves me the most time.
   
   
   Collection Periods
   
   I collect around the middle of each month on Saturday or Sunday. (13-16th of most months). This is why I call this time frame periods and not months. This tied in with the first article I did in the third week of december, and I only continued the time I started to the time frame I do now. Data from smashboards is collected based on the date posted, not the date of the actual event. In this way, I still gather results from all results regardless of when it actually happened.
   
   
   Entrant requirement
   
   I only include (starting with this most recent article) tournaments of either 32 entrants or above. This is a strict cut off because I don’t want data from someone’s gamestop store credit tournament (rough estimation) or a friend’s birthday party. I do want a dedicated tournament, and from experience of going to tournaments, 32 is a nice baseline number. It also requires some level of effort to organize and run on time. The important part is that it needs to be competitive, but also encompassing enough that I have a wide look at the scene as a whole.
   
   Why not more than 32
   
   First and foremost, I want a broader outlook on the Smash 4 metagame. However, I understand that this doesn’t give an accurate look at Smash 4’s meta as an esport, but moreso looks like, in comparison to League, platinum-challenger level play. To remedy this, starting next period, I will be gathering data from tournaments with 96 players or above every three periods (for a sufficient amount of data) and doing a similar article. This is to look at more competitive, and likely more professional and well known tournaments with top players involved as the incentive for a top level player is greater the bigger the prize pool/player amount.
   
   
   Supernationals
   
   The Apex' and Evos of the world. If a tournament gets this large (800+ is a rough estimate. I’ll likely use around Apex entrant amount) I will do a breakdown of the top 128, 64, 32, 16, and 8, to see if there are any trends in character select between these milestones. This will really get into the highest level of competition and Smash Bros as an esport.
   
   
   Known representational problems/how you can help
   
   Everything up to this point is largely North American. I can count on my fingers how many tournaments I have collected data from outside NA. This is a problem that I can’t really solve. Obviously, this means that the current data doesn’t reflect Europe, Japan, Chile, etc. If anyone knows the data from these tournaments, please, make a tournament thread. I don’t have access (or the time) to go out and find tournament results outside of Smash Bros. I want this article series to have the best representation of the Smash 4 metagame as a whole, but I cannot do that without being able to go to smashboards and see tournament results threads from every Smash scene.
   
   _
   
   With all of this said, here is a final link to my most recent State of Sm4sh. If anyone wants to give me suggestions or discuss methodology, I’m open to it, though I am very busy right now. I will eventually be able to respond. The best way to know when a new State of Sm4sh is done is to follow me on twitter @ Z Zander2Green and to follow @Goldper10. I will always post a link there and on the Smash 4 discussion page on facebook. I can't post a link to the most recent article due to not posting more than ten times so you'll have to go to my twitter or the gp10 website to find it