Lord Chair
Smash Master
Link to original post: [drupal=3403]USA: An Inferior Metagame; a careful synopsis on the state of USA-EU relationships[/drupal]
Now that I've caught your attention, at first I'd like that valuable attention to go towards reading this post:
You see, gentlemen, this is the story of life and thus, the story of Smashboards. Smashboards is part of some people's life, so that's just completely logical, but I digress (Or do I? How can one digress when he has no clear subject to speak of? Don't I? I don't know, perception is illusion, wise men tend to say. That quote has clear roots in Zen Buddhism (which is NOT American). Notice how I create a subject, only to categorize it as me 'digressing, oh well.).
Do you understand now? Yes/no/maybeso? Anyhow, the undertone of this thread is supposed to be: USA sucks, Europe is better and any attempt to deny that fact just makes you look silly. Rather silly indeed.
Yes, yes, you may think: Good lord what is this man rambling about. Complete and utter rubbish. You may also note how this gentleman's English is by far superior to that of most 'Americans'. Oh wait I should say: My 'American' is better than your 'American'. Obviously you're the one to make differences between British English and American English, good boy, you're smart like that. Other things you might think are: 'Who is this? Why is America terrible according to this lad? Europe sucks lol. I'm Mintyflesh and I suck.'
Ya digg? No, you probably don't because you're ignorant like that. The essence of this post is to make you understand, as well as feel, why you lose against 70-30 matchups, and why Europe is and always will be superior.
The reasons for that fact can be looked for on several levels, the first being cultural: You think you're the best and you think that's clear, we think we're cool and aren't all patriotic, we work as a team. United we stand, I always tend to think of that Yugioh card (and surprisingly, how terrible that card is). Oh reader, reader, the ignorance! I could tell stories about the true reason I'm writing this story for, it all began with a certain girl and it all ended with boredom. Did it really? Of course, it didn't start with a girl, it started with the beginning of my life. All events eventually reached out to this very moment: The moment on which I wrote an excessive wall of text for no apparent reason.
Now to address the issue at hand: Your failure. You don't fail at life, no you probably don't. You just fail at Smash, in which 'failing' should be defined as: 'performing mediocre', especially compared to those countries overseas (I really don't care which sea/ocean, if it's another country it's probably better at Smash). Anyhow, you suck because you don't know what you're doing, you're all just sheep following your true moronic leaders.
That's not your fault, you were born that way, you were born in a nation that was born that way. You can't help it. How do you fix this, however? That's not something I want to be leading, it's something you should figure out on your own, like Neo did in the Matrix (though that was really silly, he beat Agent Smith by just existing or something, really lame).
You're lame like that, too. I don't know 1 European who'd prefer to win through having his opponent disqualified. That's just lame man, you're playing a game right here, for money blabla I don't care. If you ever started playing Brawl because you wanted to make a living with it then you have been failing right from the beginning. We don't counterpick DDD because our Marth cannot beat your DK (only to lose anyway, lololol) and we most certainly don't borrow a lot of money we can't afford to pay back. Do you know how much money America owes to China at the moment? Pathetic, Jesus Christ.
Do you understand now? 'Yes' is the wrong answer, some things just cannot be comprehended: we don't know why HAL went rampage, we don't know why that girl doesn't like us and we don't even want
to know the origins of the EU-US debate. A debate very much like all others, in no way unique and in no way insightful. It is being held for entertainment purposes on Europe's side, and for no apparent reason on USA's side. It is nothing more than ordinary trolling, and Americans are just that good at getting baited.
Imagine: Mintyflesh (he will be my primary example of shortsightedness and mediocrity) shows up at our Dutch forums (which are located here, if any of you want to take Minty's place in proving my statement: http://smash-bros.nl/phpbb/index.php), what do you, reader, think will happen?
Imagine he posts random stuff, bashing Europe and all that, would we allow ourselves to get trolled? No we won't, we won't discuss with him because we know he's lonely and miserable. Or he's just bored (in which case he should just watch some films or series, really). This is yet another thing in which Europeans are just superior to Americans: we have a certain sense of integrity and foresight, we don't get trolled because we know how it works. We enjoy trolling you guys because you don't, that's the simple truth and pretty much the answer to what you may or may not regard as some sort of 'mystery'.
Admittedly: most of you are very aware of yourselves being trolled, and some of you may even like it. Your apparent idiocy and talent at generally being wrong and all is in no way pertinent, but hey: What is?
Anyhow, the tone of this 'essay' (due to a lack of better words) has been increasingly negative. That's one of those things in which excessive trolling results: there actually ìs some tension between USA and EU right now! Why oh why, does it have to be that way, gentlemen? Should all Europeans just act like as if they're 'MERICAN and get it over with? Of course not, we have our pride, not patriotic pride like you, individual pride. We choose our own path, the way that boy and girl did in the Blue Lagoon. We speak our mind like Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot's Lucky, even if somehow it turns out to just be a heap of rubbish (with a meaning, however, one which you silly Americans never get to understand). If you understand these references, especially the second one, then props to you.
I digress, what I'm trying to say is that you have been reading this through for about 1400 words now, and I somehow right in what I say? Of course I am, you should've figured that out long ago, because I simply have that much credibility. You'll see that no mod will rate this thread as trolling, this is simply an entertaining AS WELL AS INFORMATIVE essay on how to behave on forums, as well as a good lesson learned for life. If this thread were to be blocked then frankly, it'd only tell the lot of us how silly the Smashboards staff is: there's so much spam and unintelligent discussion going on on this forum, it'd be a shame if something with the slightest spark of intellect would be closed right away, on what grounds for that matter?
I ask of you, Smashboards, can you hate that which you do not know? We'll probably never know how well the 2 continents are matched, Ally may come to BBI (probably not lulz, he's a great troll) and the only Europeans going to Brawl Apex are Nikenick, Gheb and myself. We ain't top players, we won't represent anything. We'll have to wait and wait and by the time we'd see something happen, the Brawl scene has died out. That's the truth.
'What the hell does that mean.'
Right, silly you. You're not supposed to wonder what it means, you're supposed to find out for yourself, that's imperative in art. To me, this represents a naive sense of hope and idealism (America) being escorted by efficiency through socialism (Stalin, Europe) and the typical Byronic hero (House, Japan). Hope sits on top of a horse, naked yet fearless with sword in hand. Socialism and the Byronic hero stand along, minding their own business, not really caring about or looking up to Hope.
However, that should not necessarily be what you see, what do you see, faithful reader?
Anyhow, on to the next subject on which Europeans are way superior: general moral and wisdom. Europeans are generally way wiser than Americans. You silly right-wing, brainwashed-fearing-TERRISM bunch of sheep. Afraid of porn, yet hypocritically having the largest porn industry in the world. Politics in which you can't be gay, because that's just terrible. Censoring swear words on TV because they'd be bad for your children, fearing AIDS because it's bad stuff (lulz l2condom), being Amish 'n redneck and hating Mexicans for doing all your dirty work, puking them out like nothing else even though they never did anything wrong (per se).
SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT? Percentage of complete idiots in Europe: 90%. Percentage of complete idiots in USA: 95%. That's where your problem lies, we can just barely cope with the idiocy because we have the intelligence to compensate it with, you can't.
That doesn't mean that you're an idiot per se, you're just very likely to be one, even if you're an European. Truth is, at least we do know how we fare compared to you Americans, because we actually tend to KNOW something about the world. We KNOW how stupid we are, and we KNOW how stupid other people are. We do not think that the States have a larger cultural diversity than the entirety of Europe simply because that's the truth, and we don't think Germany is communist (lol you guys). Knowledge is power, it's a shame that power isn't knowledge.
Why are you the way you are, shortsighted and full of taboos? Why can't I say '******', why can't we talk about porn in off-topic, why is it strange of us to think you guys are strange with all the crap we're hearing? Why are you so easily offended, why is your entire culture based around power, money, influence and control? Those are questions no one will really answer, either because they feel offended or because they understand I am to form my own opinions (which frankly, I have made). You should think about it though, you really should (because what was just said probably counts for most of you).
I digress, this should be about Smash and your underdeveloped metagame. A metagame underdeveloped and continually getting more and more underdeveloped as more and more people just start to learn only the few matchups which are relevant in the current situation, which leads into Marths losing against Luigis and Ness winning against MK. Your metagame is oh so good, but only really at top tier matchups. In Europe and Japan, other characters are played. We see ROBs and how the character does a fairly decent job against most characters not called Meta Knight, and how he may actually prove himself to be a very soft Marth counter (Or is he? I say 60-40 Marth, some Marths say 55-45 ROB, we'll never know because you guys simply don't have any good ROBs to speak of).
As such, the ever degrading quality of your metagame will fall behind Europe's, if it hasn't already. You may have the players, and you may have the insane resources to fuel your community with, but it won't do any good unless you actually play the full game. Smashboards has been collecting MU data for what, 2 and a half years and it STILL isn't complete. Some boards have pretty much died out simply because all those Bowsers and Sonics are now playing MK instead of the character they would have liked and loved if it weren't for the stupid state of character diversity. Some MUs will never be completely reviewed simply because NO ONE CARES. That's just awful.
'Then where are those divine Europeans, helping us to complete our databases?'. Haha, who the hell do you think you are? We are being vomited out of your boards, nothing we say is important because we don't place in your random Midwest tournaments (how could we, even?). We have nothing to get here, apart of randomly trolling you guys and using your carefully extracted frame data 'n shiz. We use the Europe! subforum to connect the communities of the different European countries, and love watching your vids (and bashing you in the progress).
We love you Americans, there is no way we could ever live without you. We waste our time on YOUR forums, watching YOUR vids and generally using YOUR chatrooms, data, Mafia threads and silly terminology. We'd be nowhere without you, and you should never forget that. There's nothing I'd like to do more than tenderly caress the muscular body of your average American, kissing you, loving you, touching you.
That is the extent to which our metaphorical obsession with American culture goes. You have brought us peanutbutter, you have homosexual ZSS players (ours are Kurd and French),you brought us silly hacking projects like Brawl+ (oh wait, that was TPK, sorry European effort was involved), you bring us tons of porn and a semi-decent film industry (out of all those mostly terrible films you produce, some are actually enjoyable) and hell, you just influence our lives like nothing else.
We acknowledge that because it's the truth, you fail at a lot of thing yet you tend to make our lives just that much easier. Sometimes. As much in Smash as in general, our thanks go towards the likes of you (except for Mintyflesh, she's just a terrible person).
Anyhow, thereby I conclude the subject that was never there, I have explained to you why we work the way we do and why we troll your cause. What else is there for me to do at this point, are there more insights I could possibly share with you? Yes, there are loads of insights I could share with you, like how much you Americans are actually dependent on Europe as well. Do I dare talk about that? I don't know, probably not. If you don't know about the mutual dependencies our regions share then you're probably too short sighted to understand what I'm trying to say in the first place, what surplus value would an explanation have?
None, precisely. You might be wondering how I am capable of rambling on and on but really, what have you not seen me capable of (inb4 placing high in a tournament, touché and **** you (teehee censoring)). Boredom does strange things to a man, it makes him play unbalanced video games and watch stupid movies, it gets him to troll Smashboards and write enormous essays on randomness for NO REASON AT ALL. Or am I just fighting the boredom? Am I bored in the first place? After all, I'm having a blast writing this. I just finished my finals and all there really is for me to do is relax and make myself comfortable in this intensely annoying weather, waiting until I can go to France and Apex, in which my entrance will be all like:
Ya digg?
Yes of course you do, that is something you can relate with. After I majestically float inside the venue, I'll have all sorts of silly people challenging me to a moneymatch because they think any of us have anything to prove. As if I'd have the time or resources to play MMs all day. I'll play some, and none of those will have any meaning except for giving me the ability to compare US top players to European top players. And I'm not a top player, so beating me won't mean a thing.
Now, I shall have to commence the ending of what I have been writing the past couple of minutes (minutes, not hours, do you really think I'd waste entire days writing this?). Where to begin the beginning of my ending? Nowhere, really I see no reason not to just blatantly end this without any formal ceremony or that kinda shiz, I'm pragmatic like that.
As such, I bid you, reader, a fairly extraordinary day (which you will end up not having), having read this article until the end must have been quite the ordeal (and a really useless one at that), props to your patience and/or boredom (likely the latter). If you have any questions I'm always happy to answer them.
Kind regards,
Stoeltje
(I'm laughing at YOU).
TL;DR: Let's all be friends.
Now that I've caught your attention, at first I'd like that valuable attention to go towards reading this post:
I'll refer to this, I posted this yesterday and I figured it was worth elaborating slightly further.
You see, gentlemen, this is the story of life and thus, the story of Smashboards. Smashboards is part of some people's life, so that's just completely logical, but I digress (Or do I? How can one digress when he has no clear subject to speak of? Don't I? I don't know, perception is illusion, wise men tend to say. That quote has clear roots in Zen Buddhism (which is NOT American). Notice how I create a subject, only to categorize it as me 'digressing, oh well.).
Do you understand now? Yes/no/maybeso? Anyhow, the undertone of this thread is supposed to be: USA sucks, Europe is better and any attempt to deny that fact just makes you look silly. Rather silly indeed.
Yes, yes, you may think: Good lord what is this man rambling about. Complete and utter rubbish. You may also note how this gentleman's English is by far superior to that of most 'Americans'. Oh wait I should say: My 'American' is better than your 'American'. Obviously you're the one to make differences between British English and American English, good boy, you're smart like that. Other things you might think are: 'Who is this? Why is America terrible according to this lad? Europe sucks lol. I'm Mintyflesh and I suck.'
Ya digg? No, you probably don't because you're ignorant like that. The essence of this post is to make you understand, as well as feel, why you lose against 70-30 matchups, and why Europe is and always will be superior.
The reasons for that fact can be looked for on several levels, the first being cultural: You think you're the best and you think that's clear, we think we're cool and aren't all patriotic, we work as a team. United we stand, I always tend to think of that Yugioh card (and surprisingly, how terrible that card is). Oh reader, reader, the ignorance! I could tell stories about the true reason I'm writing this story for, it all began with a certain girl and it all ended with boredom. Did it really? Of course, it didn't start with a girl, it started with the beginning of my life. All events eventually reached out to this very moment: The moment on which I wrote an excessive wall of text for no apparent reason.
Now to address the issue at hand: Your failure. You don't fail at life, no you probably don't. You just fail at Smash, in which 'failing' should be defined as: 'performing mediocre', especially compared to those countries overseas (I really don't care which sea/ocean, if it's another country it's probably better at Smash). Anyhow, you suck because you don't know what you're doing, you're all just sheep following your true moronic leaders.
That's not your fault, you were born that way, you were born in a nation that was born that way. You can't help it. How do you fix this, however? That's not something I want to be leading, it's something you should figure out on your own, like Neo did in the Matrix (though that was really silly, he beat Agent Smith by just existing or something, really lame).
You're lame like that, too. I don't know 1 European who'd prefer to win through having his opponent disqualified. That's just lame man, you're playing a game right here, for money blabla I don't care. If you ever started playing Brawl because you wanted to make a living with it then you have been failing right from the beginning. We don't counterpick DDD because our Marth cannot beat your DK (only to lose anyway, lololol) and we most certainly don't borrow a lot of money we can't afford to pay back. Do you know how much money America owes to China at the moment? Pathetic, Jesus Christ.
Do you understand now? 'Yes' is the wrong answer, some things just cannot be comprehended: we don't know why HAL went rampage, we don't know why that girl doesn't like us and we don't even want
to know the origins of the EU-US debate. A debate very much like all others, in no way unique and in no way insightful. It is being held for entertainment purposes on Europe's side, and for no apparent reason on USA's side. It is nothing more than ordinary trolling, and Americans are just that good at getting baited.
Imagine: Mintyflesh (he will be my primary example of shortsightedness and mediocrity) shows up at our Dutch forums (which are located here, if any of you want to take Minty's place in proving my statement: http://smash-bros.nl/phpbb/index.php), what do you, reader, think will happen?
Imagine he posts random stuff, bashing Europe and all that, would we allow ourselves to get trolled? No we won't, we won't discuss with him because we know he's lonely and miserable. Or he's just bored (in which case he should just watch some films or series, really). This is yet another thing in which Europeans are just superior to Americans: we have a certain sense of integrity and foresight, we don't get trolled because we know how it works. We enjoy trolling you guys because you don't, that's the simple truth and pretty much the answer to what you may or may not regard as some sort of 'mystery'.
Admittedly: most of you are very aware of yourselves being trolled, and some of you may even like it. Your apparent idiocy and talent at generally being wrong and all is in no way pertinent, but hey: What is?
Anyhow, the tone of this 'essay' (due to a lack of better words) has been increasingly negative. That's one of those things in which excessive trolling results: there actually ìs some tension between USA and EU right now! Why oh why, does it have to be that way, gentlemen? Should all Europeans just act like as if they're 'MERICAN and get it over with? Of course not, we have our pride, not patriotic pride like you, individual pride. We choose our own path, the way that boy and girl did in the Blue Lagoon. We speak our mind like Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot's Lucky, even if somehow it turns out to just be a heap of rubbish (with a meaning, however, one which you silly Americans never get to understand). If you understand these references, especially the second one, then props to you.
I digress, what I'm trying to say is that you have been reading this through for about 1400 words now, and I somehow right in what I say? Of course I am, you should've figured that out long ago, because I simply have that much credibility. You'll see that no mod will rate this thread as trolling, this is simply an entertaining AS WELL AS INFORMATIVE essay on how to behave on forums, as well as a good lesson learned for life. If this thread were to be blocked then frankly, it'd only tell the lot of us how silly the Smashboards staff is: there's so much spam and unintelligent discussion going on on this forum, it'd be a shame if something with the slightest spark of intellect would be closed right away, on what grounds for that matter?
I ask of you, Smashboards, can you hate that which you do not know? We'll probably never know how well the 2 continents are matched, Ally may come to BBI (probably not lulz, he's a great troll) and the only Europeans going to Brawl Apex are Nikenick, Gheb and myself. We ain't top players, we won't represent anything. We'll have to wait and wait and by the time we'd see something happen, the Brawl scene has died out. That's the truth.
'What the hell does that mean.'
Right, silly you. You're not supposed to wonder what it means, you're supposed to find out for yourself, that's imperative in art. To me, this represents a naive sense of hope and idealism (America) being escorted by efficiency through socialism (Stalin, Europe) and the typical Byronic hero (House, Japan). Hope sits on top of a horse, naked yet fearless with sword in hand. Socialism and the Byronic hero stand along, minding their own business, not really caring about or looking up to Hope.
However, that should not necessarily be what you see, what do you see, faithful reader?
Anyhow, on to the next subject on which Europeans are way superior: general moral and wisdom. Europeans are generally way wiser than Americans. You silly right-wing, brainwashed-fearing-TERRISM bunch of sheep. Afraid of porn, yet hypocritically having the largest porn industry in the world. Politics in which you can't be gay, because that's just terrible. Censoring swear words on TV because they'd be bad for your children, fearing AIDS because it's bad stuff (lulz l2condom), being Amish 'n redneck and hating Mexicans for doing all your dirty work, puking them out like nothing else even though they never did anything wrong (per se).
SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT? Percentage of complete idiots in Europe: 90%. Percentage of complete idiots in USA: 95%. That's where your problem lies, we can just barely cope with the idiocy because we have the intelligence to compensate it with, you can't.
That doesn't mean that you're an idiot per se, you're just very likely to be one, even if you're an European. Truth is, at least we do know how we fare compared to you Americans, because we actually tend to KNOW something about the world. We KNOW how stupid we are, and we KNOW how stupid other people are. We do not think that the States have a larger cultural diversity than the entirety of Europe simply because that's the truth, and we don't think Germany is communist (lol you guys). Knowledge is power, it's a shame that power isn't knowledge.
Why are you the way you are, shortsighted and full of taboos? Why can't I say '******', why can't we talk about porn in off-topic, why is it strange of us to think you guys are strange with all the crap we're hearing? Why are you so easily offended, why is your entire culture based around power, money, influence and control? Those are questions no one will really answer, either because they feel offended or because they understand I am to form my own opinions (which frankly, I have made). You should think about it though, you really should (because what was just said probably counts for most of you).
I digress, this should be about Smash and your underdeveloped metagame. A metagame underdeveloped and continually getting more and more underdeveloped as more and more people just start to learn only the few matchups which are relevant in the current situation, which leads into Marths losing against Luigis and Ness winning against MK. Your metagame is oh so good, but only really at top tier matchups. In Europe and Japan, other characters are played. We see ROBs and how the character does a fairly decent job against most characters not called Meta Knight, and how he may actually prove himself to be a very soft Marth counter (Or is he? I say 60-40 Marth, some Marths say 55-45 ROB, we'll never know because you guys simply don't have any good ROBs to speak of).
As such, the ever degrading quality of your metagame will fall behind Europe's, if it hasn't already. You may have the players, and you may have the insane resources to fuel your community with, but it won't do any good unless you actually play the full game. Smashboards has been collecting MU data for what, 2 and a half years and it STILL isn't complete. Some boards have pretty much died out simply because all those Bowsers and Sonics are now playing MK instead of the character they would have liked and loved if it weren't for the stupid state of character diversity. Some MUs will never be completely reviewed simply because NO ONE CARES. That's just awful.
'Then where are those divine Europeans, helping us to complete our databases?'. Haha, who the hell do you think you are? We are being vomited out of your boards, nothing we say is important because we don't place in your random Midwest tournaments (how could we, even?). We have nothing to get here, apart of randomly trolling you guys and using your carefully extracted frame data 'n shiz. We use the Europe! subforum to connect the communities of the different European countries, and love watching your vids (and bashing you in the progress).
We love you Americans, there is no way we could ever live without you. We waste our time on YOUR forums, watching YOUR vids and generally using YOUR chatrooms, data, Mafia threads and silly terminology. We'd be nowhere without you, and you should never forget that. There's nothing I'd like to do more than tenderly caress the muscular body of your average American, kissing you, loving you, touching you.
That is the extent to which our metaphorical obsession with American culture goes. You have brought us peanutbutter, you have homosexual ZSS players (ours are Kurd and French),
We acknowledge that because it's the truth, you fail at a lot of thing yet you tend to make our lives just that much easier. Sometimes. As much in Smash as in general, our thanks go towards the likes of you (except for Mintyflesh, she's just a terrible person).
Anyhow, thereby I conclude the subject that was never there, I have explained to you why we work the way we do and why we troll your cause. What else is there for me to do at this point, are there more insights I could possibly share with you? Yes, there are loads of insights I could share with you, like how much you Americans are actually dependent on Europe as well. Do I dare talk about that? I don't know, probably not. If you don't know about the mutual dependencies our regions share then you're probably too short sighted to understand what I'm trying to say in the first place, what surplus value would an explanation have?
None, precisely. You might be wondering how I am capable of rambling on and on but really, what have you not seen me capable of (inb4 placing high in a tournament, touché and **** you (teehee censoring)). Boredom does strange things to a man, it makes him play unbalanced video games and watch stupid movies, it gets him to troll Smashboards and write enormous essays on randomness for NO REASON AT ALL. Or am I just fighting the boredom? Am I bored in the first place? After all, I'm having a blast writing this. I just finished my finals and all there really is for me to do is relax and make myself comfortable in this intensely annoying weather, waiting until I can go to France and Apex, in which my entrance will be all like:
Ya digg?
Yes of course you do, that is something you can relate with. After I majestically float inside the venue, I'll have all sorts of silly people challenging me to a moneymatch because they think any of us have anything to prove. As if I'd have the time or resources to play MMs all day. I'll play some, and none of those will have any meaning except for giving me the ability to compare US top players to European top players. And I'm not a top player, so beating me won't mean a thing.
Now, I shall have to commence the ending of what I have been writing the past couple of minutes (minutes, not hours, do you really think I'd waste entire days writing this?). Where to begin the beginning of my ending? Nowhere, really I see no reason not to just blatantly end this without any formal ceremony or that kinda shiz, I'm pragmatic like that.
As such, I bid you, reader, a fairly extraordinary day (which you will end up not having), having read this article until the end must have been quite the ordeal (and a really useless one at that), props to your patience and/or boredom (likely the latter). If you have any questions I'm always happy to answer them.
Kind regards,
Stoeltje
(I'm laughing at YOU).
TL;DR: Let's all be friends.
