Smash Wii U Winning Johns?

[Zeep]

Hi Guys,

Long time reader, first time poster. You know the deal.

A few friends and myself are at a crossroads as far as the term "john". We are discussing if someone can "john" if they are the winner. Here is an example.

I was playing my brother-in-law, who I consistently beat, and wanted to try out some new moves I saw Shaky's Ness do. I was fumbling around on my first life because I was doing actions I was not used to. I then stated "I am gonna stop trying new stuff and just play", and then I went on to destroy him. After the match he stated that I was "johning" because I said I was playing around at the beginning, although I still won.

So, the question is, can someone "john" if they are the winner? Or is just being a jerk because they are stating that they could have beat you by more?

Thanks!

 

[MrTimothyHay]

Long time reader, first time poster here as well!

Personally, I don't think that it can be considered a "John" if you win the match, but it is definitely a jerk move. There should be another name for people who make excuses for "not winning harder".

Just my $0.02

 

[Raijinken]

This is often called either "being a sore winner" or "being a poor sport," depending on your terminology preference.

It's also not necessarily intended as an excuse. The player's intent goes a long way in that. If I'm deliberately going for the same dumb thing over and over to teach a less-skilled friend how to avoid it, is it a john if I say "And of course, I wouldn't have lost a stock if I'd actually tried to kill you instead of hunting for Counter kills. Which you have now learned to beat by going for grabs."?

 

[Rinku リンク]

I believe it's called "Sandbagging" but I could be wrong.

 

[KniteBlargh]

I've actually wondered about this myself. In my case, I've been misinterpreted (at least I hope so) as being a jerk, because, after winning the match, I'll be mentioning something I was doing during the match I felt was stupid and can be worked on in future. I tend to have the mindset that the person I'm with is thinking along the same lines as me, just wanting to play as well as possible and hopefully learn to do better (don't focus much on the actual winning part), but in the end it totally sounds like I'm saying "I could have beaten you 10x over if I hadn't been doing this dumb thing.", so I'll then have to explain why I said whatever I said.

Then there's this other thing I tend to do... I'll be playing a friendly, use a character I never play, beat the other person playing their main, and then feel really badly about it, so I'll say something like "Well I know you can play your character much better than I can play this one, so something weird happened there, that's all." attempting to make the other person feel better, but in the end once again just sounding like a jerk.

Not sure if either case would qualify as a winning John, but eh, in the case of the latter issue, I don't really know what else to say when there are hard feelings without being misunderstood; I'm not the type that's going to purposely rub salt into the wound.

 

[Pale Tuna]

Often times, when I win against my brother, I would say that my character had a better MU against his character. Not a fan of the "sore-winner" perspective. Anyways, it is just a game, johning is normal and usually doesn't last that long for most of us.

Also, may I ask where this Crossroads is? I used to live in Clearwater and now my home is in Brandon. Would love to find more Smash players and battle them eventually lol. Or send my brother there to have fun.