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History of a Smasher

Reptar

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Nov 11, 2010
Messages
111
Location
401 REP
^^ take your time, no need to ruin with a crummy chapter, smash community is pumped
 

chillindude829

Smash Master
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
4,804
Location
Northern Virginia
Part IX – H2YL Presents: Game Over

While TG5 was the first Melee major ever, Game Over took the concept further. The tournament was more hyped, had more entrants, and had a wider range of people attending. There were attendants from at least 15 different states around the country, as well as Canada. By the time the tourney happened, I expected over 100 people to attend easily, which would make it the biggest Melee tourney to date.

I recall getting a shirt a couple days before which I wore to school the Friday before the tournament and ended up wearing for the tournament as well. It was a Packers t-shirt which was all green and had nothing but the Green Bay logo across the front. I didn’t know it then, but wearing this shirt to tourneys would end up becoming a tradition that was well-known throughout the Smash community – because of the events of Game Over, I ended up considering it sort of a lucky shirt.

The day before the tournament, as soon as I got home from school, I got my stuff that I needed for the tournament together and walked over to Azen’s house. People were already there; DieSuperFly, a relatively unknown Sheik player at the time who came from Cali and Eddie, the Midwest Ganon I’d be teaming with, were playing with Mild and Azen. Throughout the evening, more and more Smashers arrived including almost ten members of DA and the infamous Snex. By the end of the night, there were over 20 smashers packed into Azen’s tiny little house.

The Sultan of Samitude was there, and I remember watching him play friendlies vs Azen. Azen Falco ditto’d him and 3 stocked him, then went Ness and 3 stocked him again. I remember thinking to myself “wow, Azen was barely better than Samitude at TG5 and now he’s 3 stocking him with Ness.” I liked H2YL’s chances to win Game Over a lot and the fest the night before continued to boost my confidence.

The only players there who could really compete with H2YL were Eddie and DA, and to a lesser extent Samitude and his brother Scamp. DSF knew about Sheik’s chaingrabbing which was still rare at the time but he wasn’t developed enough to pose a challenge to us. Anden also arrived that night; Jtanic and Chu were housing other out of state players so they would be holding fests at their own respective houses. Chu was housing Ken and Isai, perhaps planting the seeds for his later departure from H2YL.

I finally got to sleep around 4 am. Sleeping in Azen’s packed house wasn’t easy, but I was tired enough that I fell asleep pretty fast. Everyone was still playing when I went to bed, and I’m pretty sure some people didn’t sleep at all. I woke up around 10 and immediately got excited: the day was here. The tourney was scheduled to start at noon, but with all the craziness I had a feeling it wouldn’t start on time.

There were at least 8 different cars leaving Azen’s house, and even though the venue was only 30 minutes away I believe at least a couple cars got lost on the way. When we arrived around 11 am there were already around a dozen people at the venue and I had to go in and talk to the owners of the venue to clear up confusion. We quickly got things set up and with around 40 people in the building, I realized the venue looked a lot smaller than I remembered.

Within the next half hour another 40-50 people arrived, and I was starting to get a little overwhelmed. I had a bit of assistance from H2YL but for the most part I was running this tourney solo. It took almost an hour and a half to complete registration because of the number of people; I wasn’t very organized in the way I set it up either. Finally around 1 pm registration was finished, and although singles didn’t reach 100 people there were at least 100 unique entrants since some people only entered teams. It was the biggest melee tourney to date as we’d hoped, and the venue was packed. Looking back, if we had gotten another 20 people the tourney may have gone terribly but it was just the right number of people for the venue.

I seeded teams and started to create the bracket, and another regret I immediately had was handling brackets on my own. Creating a 40+ team bracket and a 90+ person singles bracket on paper was difficult to do quickly. I did my best and ended up getting teams started by 2:30. Finally I was able to focus on the tourney and after calling matches for every setup, I sat down to play my first teams match with Eddie.

Our team name was “Chillin wit a Villain,” since Eddie played Ganon. He was undoubtedly the top Ganon player of the time, but even then people could see Ganondorf’s limitations as a character. We however breezed through our first round match and had Wes and Jason, DA’s Fox player up next.

Eddie came up to me before the match and said he had been watching Wes and Jason’s previous match, and that Wes liked to missile a lot (obviously, with Team Attack off). Eddie suggested I reflector the missiles as often as possible and that it would hit Jason, Wes’ teammate, more often than anyone. I was impressed by this strategic advice and it ended up working very well - we won 2-0. We were already doing better than we thought we would.

The bracket started to advance and no major upsets happened. The only thing that really caught people’s attention was Ken and Isai’s teamwork. They dominated every team they played in the bracket, and it seemed like no team would even be able to come close. It was a level of teams play that was years ahead of its time and pretty much everyone in the venue was impressed.

Eddie and I got to the semifinals to both of our surprise and we had to fight Azen and Anden. I had no intention of holding back vs my own crewmates and I played very well in the first two games; we jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately for Eddie and I, we had established 3/5 semifinals and 4/7 finals for the tourney, so the set was best of 5. Azen stepped his game up greatly and while Anden’s play was inconsistent throughout the set, Azen ended up clutching it out and they won three straight to win the set and advance to winner’s finals. Ken and Isai emerged out of the other side of the bracket with ease, setting up the first big clash of EC vs WC for the tourney: Ken/Isai vs Azen/Anden.

Azen/Anden got dominated and lost 3-0, and none of the matches were really close. Even with Team Attack off, which Ken/Isai weren’t as used to, their teamwork was near flawless for the early stages of the game and EC’s lack of practice in teams was exposed. Eddie and I barely lost to Chu/Jtanic’s double Samus team; the projectile use was a huge advantage in this Team Attack off tourney. We placed 5th, which we were both happy about. Azen and Anden faced Joshu and Iggy, brothers from Indiana, in loser’s finals. Joshu and Iggy didn't do very well in singles but they showed they had a good grasp of teamwork by getting all the way to loser's finals. Azen/Anden won 3-1, then got swept 4-0 in finals. Ken/Isai’s Marth/Falcon team was unstoppable by anyone at the time and I believe they went the entire tournament without dropping a game.

While this was a victory for WC, our confidence wasn’t shaken. The singles tourney was what was truly important in our eyes, and as I started to seed the bracket I was filled with anticipation. There were killers throughout the bracket and it wouldn’t be easy for anyone. I seeded Ken and Isai in opposite sides as well as Azen and Wes, arguably the EC’s two best players.

The singles bracket took even longer to seed than teams and singles finally got underway around 6 pm. Around this time is when I first started getting nervous about time constraints, but I hoped for the best. I was exhausted from looking at names and brackets, but the tourney was ready and I was pumped regardless. There was excitement throughout the room as the first round matches were called. I had a bye, then won my first match. All six members of H2YL won their first two rounds, which we were pleased about. I checked my bracket: me vs Neo, winner fights Ken.

I remember sitting down to play Neo and joking that it didn’t matter who won since we’d both lose to Ken. Neo was a Roy main at the time and still hadn’t gotten to the top level in MD/VA, so I won with relative ease. Most of the rest of H2YL advanced to the next round as well, but I believe Anden and Jtanic were put in loser’s. Ken, Isai and Azen were sweeping through their matches without breaking a sweat.

With the first three rounds of the tourney out of the way, the 4th round was filled with great matches. For me though, there was only one match to think about: me vs Ken. I had plenty of practice with Azen’s Marth, but I still didn’t really think I could win against arguably the best player in the country. I didn’t know this at the time, but Ken had never lost a set in a singles tournament to that point. I called our match and a crowd began to gather immediately around the setup. I nervously approached the TV, unaware that my Smash career was about to be changed forever.
 

Wenbobular

Smash Hero
Joined
May 26, 2006
Messages
5,744
just watched the match on youtube. marth's chaingrabby ledgeguarding bs pisses me off just as much today as it did back in '07. :chuckle: can't wait for the next part!
Gaaah that's already too much of a spoiler >:O

Also - origin of Chillin's shirt :O
 

Linguini

Smash Master
Joined
Jul 17, 2006
Messages
4,698
Location
Weston, Florida
Great read, smash history is pretty sick. Makes me want to write mine up although your area was so much more epic haha

You getting back into melee man?
 

Zodiac

Smash Master
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
3,557
I feel like this is the new weekly tv show that everyone should be watching.
 

DAlegendarysamus

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 29, 2003
Messages
1,498
Location
newyork
Props

Good job tittyman on the "True E hollywood story" of smash brothers. I should spoil it but nah I will play nice. Its sad how the community was better back then than now, eventhough the smash community is bigger now. Go figure.
 

X Japan

Smash Lord
Joined
Sep 29, 2002
Messages
1,022
Location
SouthTown, NY
Good job tittyman on the "True E hollywood story" of smash brothers. I should spoil it but nah I will play nice. Its sad how the community was better back then than now, eventhough the smash community is bigger now. Go figure.

Cuz brother we've gotten older and most of us are living are lives now. we did have some moments that were *ucking great and we all made friends along the way. plus these new waves aren't like how we now. all the trash talk and i mean real trash talk is gone. like the tpye of *hit that made ppl so mad that they played nonstop just to take ur *ss out in the 1st round. from what i've seen this place is *ussylips compare to back in the day.
 

chillindude829

Smash Master
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
4,804
Location
Northern Virginia
LMAO tittyman, but yea thanks wes, and **** blaine sighting lol... i wonder if this will bring any other old school smashers out

@ linguini yea ive been playing melee off and on this year i might try to really get back in shape before pound we'll see
 

Rubyiris

Smash Hero
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
6,033
Location
Tucson, AZ.
comparatively most people are god-awful in comparison to the days of old.

**** I've been playing competitively since 05, but I have no history in comparison to the old greats.
 

chillindude829

Smash Master
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
4,804
Location
Northern Virginia
just found the game over site, i'll link it after the next chapter to avoid spoilers but heres the 2v2 top 5

2v2

1. El Chocolate Diablo (Ken/Isai)
2. H2YL (Azen/Anden)
3. Hail to the Chimp (Iggy/Joshu)
4. Samus Connnection (Chu Dat/Jtanic)
5. Chillin wit a Villian (Chillin/Eddie)
5. Triforce (PrinceJudah/Pleasewitease) <-- this was a DA team although idk if we ever played these guys again

turns out i was wrong about 3rd place in teams, i edited that part in the most recent chapter
 

JesiahTEG

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
4,126
Location
Rochester, NY
So bring it back. I know all the old school smashers have other **** to worry about now, but start playing again and trashtalking everyone again. Seriously I would love that
 

Reptar

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Nov 11, 2010
Messages
111
Location
401 REP
GOD DAM CHILLINDUDE!!, here i am looking for a page to turn to or maybe a next or something, oh well, its great, im subscribed and awaiting the next parts arrival
 

Mike G

███████████████ 100%
BRoomer
Joined
Oct 3, 2002
Messages
10,159
Location
The Salt Mines, GA
5. Triforce (PrinceJudah/Pleasewitease) <-- this was a DA team although idk if we ever played these guys again
Chillin, that team was Rafa(Ganon) and Raul(Link). Raul quit melee right after GO and sometime later, Rafa moved to FL.


JesiahTEG: Hax, myself and others tried to bring back the hype when we were all talking madd **** to each other in that FB blog awhile back but that died out pretty fast. =/
 

JPOBS

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 26, 2007
Messages
5,821
Location
Mos Eisley
the reason there is less trash talk is cuz everyone travels MUCH more now, and there are established rankings due to a decade of tournaments.

its not the same as in 2002 when you had a year to do nothing but twiddle your thumbs and post about how you'd wreck some dude on the other side of the country. Now theres a national tourny every 3-5 months and anyone worth their salt doing any trash talking is always going to be in attendence.

lol at wes tho
 

AlphaZealot

Former Smashboards Owner
Administrator
Premium
BRoomer
Joined
Jul 6, 2003
Messages
12,731
Location
Bellevue, Washington
It didn't take me long to realize something: just like there are genius scientists and revolutionary professional athletes, Azen was a prodigy in his field, and I had a good feeling that it wasn't just because me and Mild were garbage.
I came to the same realization.

BOMB1 was notable because it’s the first tournament in MD/VA I can remember having “advanced slob picks,” or counterpicking both stage and character. The losing player picks the stage, then his opponent picks his character, then the losing player picks his character. This is the system we ended up using at Game Over and it is still the standard today; counterpicking characters was still a rarity, but since the system was in place, it started to become more and more common.
I believe it (BOMB)/Muffin King invented advanced slob picks. No one is ever really credited for it, and if we could access the archives I could probably dig up the post where Muffin first lays out the thinking behind it (I forget which of his many accounts had the post, he was banned a few times and also had access to the acount XX samurai x or something), but I remember back then we talked about the rules for the tournament and he explained this idea of "advanced slobs" to me for the first time.

Years and years later, like 2 or 3 years ago, there was a discussion I think in the MBR about who came up with it, and the Kishes wanted to take credit, but I don't think either side came up with proof. Also at the time (2003-2004) no one really followed what the other regions were doing accept the WC so what was happening in the MW was mostly pointless, its entirely possible two organizers came up with the same idea around the same time without actually knowing it (sorta like the telephone).

---

Sidenote: I have the brackets from BOMB 3 and BOMB 4 at my house in MD. I also have video of a very young looking Chillen/H2YL/PU/DA/Team Ben/everyone from like BOMB 2 IIRC. It's really hilarious to watch now (might have been BOMB 3, I forget).
 

Don Muffin

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 13, 2004
Messages
271
yeah i invented that ish, respect the old school

fillindudes this is an amazing set of posts. i didnt know you had this talent in you. or any talent, really.

keep it going
 

Anth0ny

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
4,061
Location
Toronto, Ontario
Chillin, this story is amazing. Someone could make a movie out of this $hit.

If you want a fun read, try digging up the OLD tourney threads from way back. Reading the TG4 thread and Ken's **** talk is hilarious :laugh:
 

chillindude829

Smash Master
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
4,804
Location
Northern Virginia
Chillin, that team was Rafa(Ganon) and Raul(Link). Raul quit melee right after GO and sometime later, Rafa moved to FL.
oh worddd, yea i was wondering why i couldnt recall who those guys were. i barely remember raul and i def remember rafa, cant believe they were the highest placing DA team as link/ganon, but i guess anything can happen with team attack off rofl

you could link all the posts in the first post
great idea, i did this and ill try to update it w/ each new chapter, check the first post if you wanna see

the reason there is less trash talk is cuz everyone travels MUCH more now, and there are established rankings due to a decade of tournaments.

its not the same as in 2002 when you had a year to do nothing but twiddle your thumbs and post about how you'd wreck some dude on the other side of the country. Now theres a national tourny every 3-5 months and anyone worth their salt doing any trash talking is always going to be in attendence.
yup i agree, i actually had a paragraph basically saying this in one of the first few parts... kinda sucks but it makes sense. i think this has happened in multiple games too, someone bumped this old *** mvc2 results thread from 04 where jwong finally lost to sanford and there was madddd sh*ttalk all over the place. nowadays no one really talks sh*t at SRK either

yeah i invented that ish, respect the old school

fillindudes this is an amazing set of posts. i didnt know you had this talent in you. or any talent, really.

keep it going
rofl thx dude

link kiraki to this sh*t
 

ZoSo

Smash Champion
Joined
Jul 7, 2003
Messages
2,885
Location
Melee
I love you so much for writing this, man.

No spoilers obviously, but have you settled on a clear ending point for the story?

I think my brain is going to explode with nostalgia if you start talking about GS2.
 
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