Pierce7d
Wise Hermit
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2006
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- 1993-9028-0439
Link to original post: [drupal=2268]Pierce's experience at SNES[/drupal]
So, in the tourney results thread, I got kinda carried away. I'm going to move the post here, and just put a link in that thread.
SUPER FUN. Possibly the funnest tourney. It was just so . . . EASY. Like there were few complications and problems. There was that whole incident of damage at the hotel, but it barely held anything up. The tourney ran a little late, but everyone was still good, and except m2k, people played well. I mean, the worst part was m2k letting everything get to his head. If you read this m2k, just remember what I said to you, and I'll come visit you soon as I can, I'll even pick up melee and we can play pokemon battles (was mad fun).
I missed TX a LOT at this event. Where you at?
Friday:
We arrived early on Friday. We pulled up in the parking lot and Arrancar and some other people told us the way. We went in, and got our passes no problem. As soon as we walked in the hotel, Hunger runs up to Ksizzle and he's like "I'm your biggest fan, and takes a picture." Then he does the same with me, ADHD, BlackWaltz, and I'm not sure about Doom (we were all in the same car, it was amazing, I love my friends). Hunger is pretty cool. I also met Shugo then, but didn't play him. I played Hunger in doubles, and he is a very talented Wario.
We took a quick look around, and I dropped off my suitcase in Alex Strife's room (<3), then headed down to the huge halls where the games were being played. Everywhere in the halls there were people and vendors. It was an amazing trip down memory lane, and even to before my time, seeing all the old school games for the NES and SNES (along with PS1, etc). I went inside the room, and saw a lot of my favorite people from Midwest (Judge, Anther, Lain) though I was sad that Samurai Panda wasn't there. At the time, the Brawl + tourney was coming up, so there were quite a few Brawl+ set-ups. I personally hate Brawl+ (although I respect it's players), but I still decided to appease Judge and play a game with him. It was close, but he won two games. I played a friendly here and there with people that requested it, but mostly just watched people play, and hung out with all my friends. There were quite a few NY/NJ players representing, and I was glad.
I met up with Snakeee and we warmed up for doubles the next day. We tried a lot of team strats, and since he plays Zelda, I showed him how awesome Zelda and Marth work well together. My little sister is still one of my best partners though. Too bad my mom won't let me take her to tourneys, I wanted to team with her for this. I was late on finding a partner, as I wanted to team with m2k (but he teamed with Ally). Then I wanted to team with HAT (but he didn't come). Snakeee asked me the day before, and I agreed. Zero regrets, Snakeee is an excellent partner and stock tanks like a beast. Teaming with Zero Suit is hard, because she causes a lot of collateral damage, and it doesn't support my aggressive style, but me and Snakeee started getting a really good feel for each other's styles, and got a lot of the game play kinks out of the way.
I didn't watch Brawl+, but I was extremely happy to hear Ally get first (<3 Ally) and Ksizzle get third (<3 Ksizzle) and m2k get 4th (<3 m2k). I found it extremely amusing, because none of them play Brawl+. I kinda regretted not entering after that, because whenever I decide to entertain someone and play a match, I win (excluding Judge on Friday) so I started to wonder if I could've done it too. Marth vs. Snake is better for Marth in Brawl+ I would imagine. Oh well.
While I was there, I met up with Inui for a little bit, hanging out with a bunch of Smashers and one I didn't recognize. I greeted everyone in a jokingly cocky manner, and then I was like, "So, who is this." He replied, "I'm Jesse." I was like, "Oh cool." figuring it was just another random. Then Inui points out, "He's JesiahTEG on Smashboards," and I'm like, "Oh! You're Jesiah!" Jesse looks flabbergasted and questions why just because I found out who he is why now I seem to be treating him with more respect and interest. Inui answers for me and explains in typical Inui lingo that some people have more value than others. I was going to argue with him, but then realized that he was right. I'd much rather be hanging out with Jesse than Foxmaster1928, and I didn't even know him yet. Reputation is pretty important and that's why everyone strives for it. Then he asks who I am, and I answer "Pierce" and he's like "Pierce7d, on Smashboards, I love your posts." and makes me feel all mushy no homo and Inui is like, "See what I mean." (Just some food for thought.)
Inui, Zucco, Jesse and I (I think these were the people, for some reason my memory is failing me) took a trip to hunt for food. I stopped when I saw a Five Guys. Inui had never been to Five Guys, which surprised me because he has really good taste in food. I'm glad to say that he enjoyed his first experience there and agreed with me that the burgers were God Tier, and that Ruby Tuesdays was probably the best place for a burger.
We went back to the Smash room and hung out, but I met up with BlackWaltz, and decided to start working my agenda. I wanted to go swimming, go to the concerts, and play games. I decided the concerts would be good to do first, since they were announced to be starting soon. Despite the tornado warning, BlackWaltz and I headed outside the hotel and into the carpeted tent where the concerts were to take place.
I was one of the very few Smashers who took the time to go to the concert on Friday night. The Megas were decent, but Konomi Kode was AMAZING. I never heard of them before the concert, but they alone made the 30$ venue fee worth it. If they were having another concert, I'd pay 30$ again just to see just them. Then BrentalFloss was hilarious and amazing. I bought both his CD and Konomi Kode's. I was EXTREMELY disappointed in FreezePop, because they were so hyped up, and Reflex was telling me how amazing they were, but then they totally sucked. I figured that it must've just been that their style of music just isn't as good live, and later heard that there were a lot of technical difficulties, but I just wasn't getting the same energy and vibe from the performers that the other performers had given me. That + mediocre music caused me to retire from the concert in the middle of the third number.
I headed back to the Smash room, but not for long, because I was staying with Inui and Co.. We were leaving since we stayed in a separate hotel, because Inui got a discount, and it cost 35$ per night, meaning it cost me only $5. It was good, because Inui is a good friend of mine, and I'm extremely fond of Jesse now, he's by far one of the coolest people I met. Ksizzle was also there, and we've been getting really close lately. Izumi, Zucco (moreso than before now) and Shadow are all also friends of mine, and they were there as well, so it was all great company. I crashed pretty early, because doubles was scheduled to start at 10am the next day, and I wanted to be ready. Only Jesse fell asleep before me.
Saturday:
I woke up late surprisingly. Normally, I'm up at the first crack of light, and I easily stir. I'll sit awake for an hour or two waiting for everyone else. I was surprised to find that nearly everyone had awoken before me, though I was able to stay up extremely long that day, so I guess the refreshing sleep payed off. We had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel, making the 5 dollars spent extremely worth. We then headed back to the venue.
Very few people were in the tourney room by the time we got there, which didn't surprise me, even though the tournament was scheduled to start in half an hour. People were just knocked out. I was feeling pretty confident against Snake lately (still am actually), and I saw Ally and No. I love Ally to death, though I'm always disappointed when we play, because just doesn't **** me like I expect him to, and we go even in friendlies. Finally, this time I decided I'd challenge him to a money match and see if he was just sandbagging because it's friendlies (or not trying his hardest which may include not camping excessively) or if it's just that I style countered him or whatever. Normally, Ally does loads of $1 money matches, and I asked if he wanted to do $1 or $5. He told me to set the amount, so I decided the middle ground was good, and we played for three dollars. I beat him game one on Battlefield, and I banned Halberd. He took me to FD, and it was close, but he won. He very wisely banned Lylat, and I probably counter-picked to Yoshi's far too conservatively. He decisively two-stocked me, but I wasn't mad, just glad to see that Ally did indeed remain a grade over all the other Snakes I'd been ******, and it encourages me to continue perfecting the Marth vs. Snake MU. I would've loved to play Ally in more friendlies, but other people desired his attention, and I needed to find Snakeee to warm up for doubles, so we parted ways for the time and made false promises to each other to play friendlies later.
I got Snakeee, and we warmed up. I considered using other characters in doubles, but Snakeee felt the most comfortable with my Marth and his ZSS, so we stuck to our mains the entire tourney. At first things were shaky, but over time, we really started to synchonize, and starting hitting epic teams combos. We ended up losing to Anti and Hunger, and we were kinda upset, because game 1 we lost due to an SD on Battlefield, which was our stage of the day. We took them back there, and won on game 2, but we lost game 3 on FD pretty solidly. ADHD and Fatal were just extremely well prepared, and beat us soundly, ending us at 9th place. I would've liked to have placed in the money, and perhaps MK would've helped me, but I'm okay, just a little sorry to let my partner down.
Sometime during this, I had gotten some Chicken Tenders. Naturally, they, along with all the other food at the venue, were overpriced, but they did taste good.
After doubles, Atomsk sought me out and asked if I wanted to go to McDonalds with him. I notified him that I just ate, but he repeated the question. I was glad he did. Atomsk is my favorite Smasher, and I replied in the affirmative, that I would accompany him, though I would not purchase food at the McDonalds. I wanted a sweet tea anyway. We talked about his doubles performance. He was upset that he didn't win, because he wanted the money to go see his girlfriend, and buy her nice things. I'm a romantic myself, so I could definitely sympathize with him. On the walk back, he told me I should stop playing to learn, and play to win, and that one day, I'd be a top player. He encouraged me to get upset if I messed up and lost, because that's the best way to get better.
Singles Pools was about to begin, and I played a few friendlies, but for the most part, I just went back to hanging out. I browsed the merchandise and considered playing some other games, though I regretfully passed on it. When pools began, I dropped a set to Culex, and just was not playing well at all (no discredit to Culex though, he's quite talented). Ninjalink was playing more inconsistently than me though, and I was able to beat him, even though I dropped a game to some random Falco (I SDed at 0, and failed to 0 to death every stock, I'm just cursed.) I also lost to Zucco on the stream. I just messed up a lot at the very end, and my momentum died right before the finish. The rest of my pool was pretty easy, and I got 2nd seed to Culex. In the middle of it, I had the honor of doing just a little bit of commentary, which is one of my biggest passions, probably even more than doing well in singles. I didn't really get a chance to comment on higher level matches, which I'm much better at, but it's still super fun for me to talk to everyone at home, and let them know what's going on (<3 Mrs. BlackWaltz). I was kinda embarrassed about playing so poorly on Livestream, but I'm kinda getting past the point of caring. It's well known that I'm an inconsistent player that could be really amazing and knows his stuff. However, until I can overcome the mental barriers holding me back, that's all I'll be, but one day, I'll be a top player.
To be honest, I was kinda disgusted with myself. I get upset, even a little sick, watching my Marth make so many errors, when I KNOW the right thing to do. I frequently question why I can't just play as I know how all the time. Hopefully, I'll find the answer soon.
I advanced to brackets, and fought GreenAce round 1. He was quite formidable, despite being Yoshi, but I was able to best him, and I advanced to round 2. My opponent was Anther, and I was excited, and extremely eager to fight Anther again. The first and last time we had met on the battlefield was at COT4 in pools. We both 2-0ed our entire pool full of MKs, Camalange, and R.I.G., except each other. We had an absolutely epic set on livestream, where I bested him game 1, lost game 2, and missed sweetspotting the edge on Lylat getting killed by Fsmash at last stock, high percents game three. Every single match was extremely close, last stock, high percent, and I played relatively well. Despite missing the sweetspot and losing the set over it, I had no johns. It was an honor to lose to such a worthy opponent, and I knew one day a chance for a rematch would arise. Today was the day. I was super determined to beat Anther, and I was slightly more prepared for Pikachu.
The set mimiced the previous one. He took game one this time, then I took game two, learning how to fight a true Pikachu. I was on the edge the entire time. The matches took long, because we were cautious and somewhat campy, but it was still extremely excited, both to play and to watch. Friends of mine and Anther's cheered from behind us every time one of us landed a hit, or DIed a potential kill move excellently. You would've thought Marth and Pikachu were both heavyweight, with both of us living to well over 150% every stock. I cursed myself everytime I failed to tipper an aerial that might've killed him, but was now stale and useless. At that percentage, Dancing Blade no longer comboed into the last hit, but I was probably over cautious, and missed a couple of kill opporunities..
Game three was on Smashville. Just like the previous games, we were evenly matched the entire way through the round. I solidly believe that we were never more than 40% apart during the entire set. This was the last match, so it counted even more than the previous two. Done were we with throwing our parlor tricks at each other, and trying to play on the opponent's inexperience in the match-up. We were both pros, we learned too fast. I couldn't expect him not to punish the next Utilt, and he knew that I'd not only DI another downsmash, but tech it and punish as well. One wrong move, and we'd die. I'm watching the clock the whole time, and it hits one minute left. I ask Anther if he's going to time me out. He's up in percentages, sitting on 143% while I'm at 172%. He replies that he doesn't know. He's planking the ledge, but I didn't approach. It didn't matter. At 172%, I can't do anything. One whiff, and I'm gone, and Pikachu is too agile to hit with a kill move. I try to spot an opening, but inexperience against a good Pikachu failed me, and I didn't know how to punish Pikachu planking. Ledge drop quick attack.
The clock hit 20 seconds and I lost my resolve. I had already submitted to defeat. I could not wrack up 30% on a player bent on evasion in this amount of time. I considered committing suicide, but it would've been dishonorable, similar to simply knocking all the pieces off the board when both you and your opponent see that they have cornered you with a guaranteed checkmate in three turns. "3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . GAME! Sudden Death!" Haha, what a joke. We'd been playing sudden death for the last 3 minutes. I quit the match. Looking back, I can't recall if I shook Anther's hand, and I hope I did. I like Anther, but I was pretty sad. Not sad because I lost, but just because the set had been tainted. I felt robbed. After COT4, I was so pumped, and now just to look back and know that Anther had never slain me, nor I him, and that he had just timed me out made me feel like my unfinished business was still yet to be resolved. One of my truest rivals and favorite smashers had indeed just resorted to timing me out. I couldn't blame him. I main Marth. He mains Pikachu. He does what he can, for himself, and for the pride of his fans.
I look inside myself and I'm comforted with the knowledge that if it were me up by 30% I would have fought to the death. Sometimes, it's more than just winning or losing. Sometimes, it's about fighting the good fight, which is why I can still love this game, even when so many other players hate it or find it boring. Some might say I have a scrub mentality, to think that I have fun, and that's what really counts. Perhaps, you're probably right. Nevertheless, I value the pleasures I find in this game. Anther is a true pro. He plays to win. I don't need to forgive him for timing me out, it's part of the game, and no offense was made. Still, it sits cold in my heart thinking of what could've happened if there was no timer. Would I have prevailed, or would he. I long to know, but it's lost to history now. I can only promise myself that I'll polish my skill, and be ready for anything next time.
My next opponent was Jesse, which saddened me. I had just met Jesse and liked him a lot, and though we had yet to play, I had a distinct feeling he was not on my skill level, and I was proven correct, utterly destroying him round one. Round two, he counter-picks me to FD after I banned Halberd, and the **** ensues. However, a series of technical errors result in me SDing at 53%. Now, Jesse is pretty good, I've just gotten really good at the Snake MU, and he lacked my experience. Still, it's pretty hard to make a comeback versus Snake. He takes the round.
I'm slightly frustrated, but realize that it should be no sweat to win R3. I take him back to FD after he banned Lylat, knowing that I severely out-played him on the stage. Once again I self-destructed. I impressed myself, by not letting it get to my head. I managed to make an amazing comeback. It wasn't enough though, I got Utilted and died. Oddly, I wasn't upset at all. I liked Jesse enough to feel comfortable with him advancing, even if I didn't think he was better than me. He was way cool enough that I knew he wouldn't hold the victory over my head, and I respect him enough to let him have his win honorably. I thought to myself, "Atomsk would be disappointed," but quickly shook it from my head, and decided that I would continue to hone my skill, and take the next one.
Now that I was eliminated from all tourney, I was free to resume my position at the livestream. I commented a few matches, though OWM was running the bracket very smoothly, and didn't want to keep switching between TIO and the chat, so I was unable to attend to them as much as I had before. I was sad when Ally beat Atomsk, but I had to abandon the commentary when Ally beat Jason, because I knew Jason let his opponent get into his head way too much. Concerned for him, I left to console him, and picked Snake against him while he saw how many times he could deplete one of my 99 stocks in 8 minutes, while I learned how to play Snake.
Still, he wasn't in the emotional mindset to fight ADHD. Though he did so, he played very poorly, as he did against Ally, and ADHD destroyed him. He didn't mind that as much though, as he expected to lose in his condition, and wanted to see if ADHD could beat Ally.
I took to the stage next to ADHD. He lives near me, and we practice together a lot, and have hung out several times outside of Smash. We've gotten pretty close, and though I'm fond of Ally, I was definitely rooting for ADHD. I assumed the spot next to him, and told him I would coach him. He always gets mad at me, because his opponent's often ask me how to beat him, and though I never betray any of his personal habits, I inform them about overlook-able facts regarding Diddy. Though I usually want ADHD to win his matches, it frustrates me to watch people remain ignorant about core game knowledge, especially since Diddy is a top tier character, so I'll usually teach them a few tricks about the match-up. He complains I never help him, even though we both know that's false, and I've helped him break many a bad habit, and continue to try and polish his game. This time, I'd be helping him beat Ally.
The match began, and both ADHD and I are standing on the right, while Ally and Lain are sitting on the left. Most of the crowd is cheering for ADHD, and everyone is very tense, largely attributed to the fact that both Mew2King and MetaKnight were absent for Grand Finals. It was weird in how comfortable it was, as I had sat been aside champion caliber player many a time. In fact, I sat next to M2k when he fought Ally at Genesis. Now, I was going to help ADHD do what M2k had lost to resolve to do: smite my Candian friend. I'd been sitting alongside Ally at times as well, cheering him on, and thinking of it, it reminded me that his girlfriend was usually there was well, and she was nowhere to be seen. I was quite curious as to what she could be doing that was more important than Grand Finals (I found out later that she was sleeping upstairs). Still, Grand Finals had to progress without her, and I had to worry about guiding ADHD to beating Ally.
It worked. ADHD is extremely talented, and took my advice quickly. As the set was progressing, no one in the world wanted ADHD to win more than me except he himself. I was extremely tense, and yelled at him to DI everything, which he did not fail me in. Ally's DI was impeccable, and I would just swear under my breath everytime he SDIed an fsmash or survived some attack at 200%+. At the very end, he traded hits with Ally's ftilt using a Monkey Flip Kick, and I was like, "****, don't die on me now, DI IT!" He succeeded, and almost a full second later, Ally died off the right side of the screen. Monkey Flip Kick is not a kill move, but Ally was at 283%. The screen flashed game, and there was half a second of silence as we all processed what happened (and I thanked God Ally chose ftilt instead of Utilt which would've won him that round). I screamed first, a resounding roar of "YES!" pumping my fist strongly into the air, ecstatic over his victory. I hugged him and lifted him into the air. Several people tried to climb up and help, but they only ended up putting him in a stupid position and almost dropped him, so I set him back down. I wanted to say good game to Ally, but he left (I later found out that he wanted to buy his girlfriend a gift with the prize money, and that's why he was sad.) I couldn't dwell on him though. This was a victory for us. I started an "ADHD" chant, and he and I ran over to the main table, and greeted the livestream. I celebrated with him for the next 20 minutes, but I knew he and the others were probably going off to have a drink and that pretty much everyone was going to, but I do not drink, so we parted ways until the next day.
The smash room has significantly emptied by now, as it was past 2:30 am. Players were either partying or sleeping, but I was in luck. I spotted D1, Lord Knight, and Blackanese, and I played them in friendlies. Blacka is too funny, and D1 is my first friend in from the smash community. It was really great to see Lord Knight as well, just because I haven't seen him in such a long time, even though he lives in New Jersey. He seemed pretty confident he was going to win BlazBlue the next day. Even luckier was that soon M2k, Mango, and Milktea joined us.
Mango was slightly drunk, and Milktea was taking care of him. I met Mango and Milktea at Genesis, and grew quite fond of them both, so it was really great to see them again. Outside of the NY/NJ players, Mango is my favorite melee player. His style is just so cool. He quite clearly gets his point across, usually in a comical way, using so few words, and when he just walks around you feel like he's thinking, "I don't give a ****, I'm Mango." He's straight up with you, and I just can't find any reason to dislike him. Sure he's a little cocky, who isn't? He's still the best Melee player right now. I seriously love this guy, and he's one of the reasons I'm getting back into Melee.
Milktea was a player who I always appreciated, but since she's female, it's annoying to try to get to know her at first. Most of you know how it is. I don't have any problems talking to females, but it's annoying when you just want to be someone's friend, because you sounds so stupid trying to introduce yourself. I didn't exactly want to IM her and be like, "Hey, I'm Pierce. I read your posts on smashboards, and unlike every other guy, I don't want to go out with you, I just think you're pretty cool and I just want to be your friend." Obviously, it sounds extremely dumb. Girls are so hard to make friends with in communities like this, because they're so scarce, they're like a commodity, and they're bound to think you're just one of those online creeps if you just IM them out of the blue. Plus they're going to think that you're only going out of your way to talk to them because they're a girl, and then you realize that it IS part of the reason you're going out of your way to talk to them, but you don't necessarily have to have a crush on them just to want to talk to them. Sometimes I just want to talk to a girl because it's DIFFERENT than a guy. They think and act differently, and are generally more amusing and pleasant (and smell better.) It's a different flavor of friend. So, I got Inui to introduce me and Genesis so I didn't seem like a stalker or something, and though we didn't spend an abundance of time together at Genesis, she still remembered me, and we became better friends at SNES. I'm super glad, because it means now I don't have to feel all weird if I want to talk to her online or something. God bless Inui.
M2k played some Brawl friendlies with Mango. The matches were hilarious, because M2k doesn't know how to sandbag, and we all know Mango doesn't really play Brawl. However, some of his amazing habits payed off tremendously. Mango expected to be in hitstun and that airdodging was just not a good idea from his melee habits, so he actually managed to do very well against m2k in that regard. He also completely ***** Dair camping. I personally am of the mindset that Mango could become the best Falco if he played Brawl, but he won't. "Too much pride" he said, when we were discussing it the next day.
Naturally, we migrated to Melee, which I didn't mind at all. We played free for all pokemon battles (only Pokeballs on high, m2k loves it and I'll admit it's grown on me) after Mango and Milktea retired for the night, and I probably played about 10 matches before calling it a night myself. I let someone else play, and then Nacho (God bless you Nacho), told me where there was a cot I could sleep in, in the medical room, and then showed me the way. It was pretty cozy, and I had all my stuff with me. I changed into night gear, and knocked out for about 4 hours (5-9.)
Sunday:
It was a short rest, but an amazing one, and I quickly headed back into the smash room. On the way there, I was intercepted by beautiful women offering me a free water canteen, and trying to give me a free hand massage, in an attempt to get me to pay a dollar a minute for a back rub. Now, I'm quite sure that if I would've sat down in that chair, and let those beautiful girls touch me, I would've quickly lost track of time, and hence, I would've lost money I couldn't afford to spend. The ladies were good company, so I lingered and flirted around a little, but I had Ksizzle pull me away when he passed through. They were far too tempting.
Most of my friends were no where to be seen, but it was cool. I put my suitcase back into the obscure corner where no one would bother it and saw two guys player Soul Caliber II on the Gamecube. SCII is one of my favorite games (I don't play competitively though) so I talked to the guys for a bit, and they informed me that they had just bought it for $15. I didn't have much money left after all the food (rooming that one night with Inui only cost me $5, so I saved a lot there) and playing BlackWaltz my portion of the gas and at tolls. Still, this would be my final souvenir to accompany my GameUnicon shirt and my Konomi Kode and BrentalFloss CDs. I bought a copy after browsing the merchandise more and chatting with the vendors.
I ran into NinjaLink and Crismas, and we hung out for a bit. Crismas directed me to where I could find some coffee (and it was very affordable compared to all the rest of the overpriced food there). I bought some coffee and breakfest, depleting my funds, and made my way back to the smash room.
The Melee tourney was about to begin. I love Melee (I'm sure I said several times in this post that I'm picking it up again.) I saw Meep, and we started playing friendlies. Then I played with several other people, both Melee and Brawl players. I learn pretty fast, so my tech skill was slowly building up, and I learned just a few basic MUs using Marth. I mained Marth back in the day, which is really the reason I'm a Marth main and not a MK main, because when the game first came out, I already knew off the trailer that MK was going to be broken and fun. I was right, and picked up as my main, but couldn't really get accustom to flying. My Metaknight was good, and I also played Marth and Mario. Slowly, I played mostly just Marth, because Melee just made him my best character since so much carried over. Reverting back to Melee was weird though, because I kept trying to use Uairs when I landed, instead of L-Cancelling Dairs. Still, my L-Cancelling was getting to be much better, I had decent spacing, and wavedashing was always easy for me.
After a little while, I met up with m2k, Mango, MilkTea, and Darc. Doom had introduced me to Darc at Apex, but we didn't really chill. I played a couple of friendlies with all of them, but they were participating in tourney, and I was not, so I bounced around, learning more about each of them, and cheering M2k and Mango on in their matches when they were called. It was weird voting for Mango against Cort, since technically Cort represents EC, and Mango WC, but I ended up not caring. Like I said, I'm extremely fond of Mango, and seeing as how I know him, I wasn't going to root for a smasher I'd only heard of but never met before.
I cheered on M2k while he was fighting Gmoney. I knew he was nervous about fighting Mango in tourney again. He was doing fine in friendlies, but his mind was taunted by the previous days events in Brawl, and his record with Mango. Later he also told me that excessive cheering for him also made him more nervous, and I made it a point to celebrate each stock he took with myself privately.
It wasn't too long before m2k and Mango made their way to each other in Finals. Mango chose Falco, and M2k chose Marth. Naturally, I was rooting for M2k. He was up 3 stocks to 1, and I thought to myself that perhaps this R1 victory would give him the confidence he needed to take the set and break the curse. But m2k got spiked and lost a stock, and it destroyed his mentality. He started playing extremely poorly, and permitted Mango to take the game. His mind wasn't in the right place, and the crowd was being distracting. I knew he wasn't going to beat Mango, and so did he. After losing game two, he didn't even finish the set. He got up and left. I knew he needed some time to think, so I left him alone for a short while, but then went to find him when his match against Hax was called. It didn't take me long. He was with Dac outside. He told me he didn't want to play vs. Hax. When we got inside, M2k went to Hax and told him he wasn't playing and for Hax to fight Mango. M2k knew that his current mentality wouldn't let him beat Mango, and he'd need more time than we had to get himself straight.
He was quite upset and distraught, but I, alongside NinjaLink, Crismas, Lain, MilkTea, and Dac gave him a pep-talk, and I think it helped cheer him up a bit. Mango beat Hax in Grand Finals, but we all missed the fight.
From there, it was pretty much over. M2k and Dac left to go eat. I chilled with Mango some more, but people started slowly leaving. Not too much longer after, I also decided it was time to go home. BlackWaltz was still in the room, so he was easy to find, but it took us a little while to hunt down Doom, Ksizzle and ADHD. BlackWaltz and Doom needed to get their Wiis, and I did my goodbyes. I saw m2k in the parking lot, and we hung out for a bit. He ***** me in a foot race, and I'm pretty fast. Dac was eager to get him in the car and go though, so we headed back, and after a few more jokes with everyone who was departing (which was like everyone) we all left.
SNES was a blast. The moral of the story is, confidence is a super important factor in any competition. I perform poorly sometimes when I lose my confidence, and I get nervous easily when I play. Even m2k does. Mango is amazing, because he can really feed off a crowd, and keep his head together. Anyone can be a top smasher, you just have to believe in yourself.
The last thing I have to say is that I am so proud of everyone because there was 0 Melee vs. Brawl beef. Melee players sampled Brawl a little (EVEN MANGO) and many Brawl players decided that Sunday was the Melee tourney, and hence a day for Melee. Furthermore, we got along with the SF community extremely well. If every even continues to go like this, I can see both Melee and Brawl continuing to be successful games for a long time.
So, in the tourney results thread, I got kinda carried away. I'm going to move the post here, and just put a link in that thread.
SUPER FUN. Possibly the funnest tourney. It was just so . . . EASY. Like there were few complications and problems. There was that whole incident of damage at the hotel, but it barely held anything up. The tourney ran a little late, but everyone was still good, and except m2k, people played well. I mean, the worst part was m2k letting everything get to his head. If you read this m2k, just remember what I said to you, and I'll come visit you soon as I can, I'll even pick up melee and we can play pokemon battles (was mad fun).
I missed TX a LOT at this event. Where you at?
Friday:
We arrived early on Friday. We pulled up in the parking lot and Arrancar and some other people told us the way. We went in, and got our passes no problem. As soon as we walked in the hotel, Hunger runs up to Ksizzle and he's like "I'm your biggest fan, and takes a picture." Then he does the same with me, ADHD, BlackWaltz, and I'm not sure about Doom (we were all in the same car, it was amazing, I love my friends). Hunger is pretty cool. I also met Shugo then, but didn't play him. I played Hunger in doubles, and he is a very talented Wario.
We took a quick look around, and I dropped off my suitcase in Alex Strife's room (<3), then headed down to the huge halls where the games were being played. Everywhere in the halls there were people and vendors. It was an amazing trip down memory lane, and even to before my time, seeing all the old school games for the NES and SNES (along with PS1, etc). I went inside the room, and saw a lot of my favorite people from Midwest (Judge, Anther, Lain) though I was sad that Samurai Panda wasn't there. At the time, the Brawl + tourney was coming up, so there were quite a few Brawl+ set-ups. I personally hate Brawl+ (although I respect it's players), but I still decided to appease Judge and play a game with him. It was close, but he won two games. I played a friendly here and there with people that requested it, but mostly just watched people play, and hung out with all my friends. There were quite a few NY/NJ players representing, and I was glad.
I met up with Snakeee and we warmed up for doubles the next day. We tried a lot of team strats, and since he plays Zelda, I showed him how awesome Zelda and Marth work well together. My little sister is still one of my best partners though. Too bad my mom won't let me take her to tourneys, I wanted to team with her for this. I was late on finding a partner, as I wanted to team with m2k (but he teamed with Ally). Then I wanted to team with HAT (but he didn't come). Snakeee asked me the day before, and I agreed. Zero regrets, Snakeee is an excellent partner and stock tanks like a beast. Teaming with Zero Suit is hard, because she causes a lot of collateral damage, and it doesn't support my aggressive style, but me and Snakeee started getting a really good feel for each other's styles, and got a lot of the game play kinks out of the way.
I didn't watch Brawl+, but I was extremely happy to hear Ally get first (<3 Ally) and Ksizzle get third (<3 Ksizzle) and m2k get 4th (<3 m2k). I found it extremely amusing, because none of them play Brawl+. I kinda regretted not entering after that, because whenever I decide to entertain someone and play a match, I win (excluding Judge on Friday) so I started to wonder if I could've done it too. Marth vs. Snake is better for Marth in Brawl+ I would imagine. Oh well.
While I was there, I met up with Inui for a little bit, hanging out with a bunch of Smashers and one I didn't recognize. I greeted everyone in a jokingly cocky manner, and then I was like, "So, who is this." He replied, "I'm Jesse." I was like, "Oh cool." figuring it was just another random. Then Inui points out, "He's JesiahTEG on Smashboards," and I'm like, "Oh! You're Jesiah!" Jesse looks flabbergasted and questions why just because I found out who he is why now I seem to be treating him with more respect and interest. Inui answers for me and explains in typical Inui lingo that some people have more value than others. I was going to argue with him, but then realized that he was right. I'd much rather be hanging out with Jesse than Foxmaster1928, and I didn't even know him yet. Reputation is pretty important and that's why everyone strives for it. Then he asks who I am, and I answer "Pierce" and he's like "Pierce7d, on Smashboards, I love your posts." and makes me feel all mushy no homo and Inui is like, "See what I mean." (Just some food for thought.)
Inui, Zucco, Jesse and I (I think these were the people, for some reason my memory is failing me) took a trip to hunt for food. I stopped when I saw a Five Guys. Inui had never been to Five Guys, which surprised me because he has really good taste in food. I'm glad to say that he enjoyed his first experience there and agreed with me that the burgers were God Tier, and that Ruby Tuesdays was probably the best place for a burger.
We went back to the Smash room and hung out, but I met up with BlackWaltz, and decided to start working my agenda. I wanted to go swimming, go to the concerts, and play games. I decided the concerts would be good to do first, since they were announced to be starting soon. Despite the tornado warning, BlackWaltz and I headed outside the hotel and into the carpeted tent where the concerts were to take place.
I was one of the very few Smashers who took the time to go to the concert on Friday night. The Megas were decent, but Konomi Kode was AMAZING. I never heard of them before the concert, but they alone made the 30$ venue fee worth it. If they were having another concert, I'd pay 30$ again just to see just them. Then BrentalFloss was hilarious and amazing. I bought both his CD and Konomi Kode's. I was EXTREMELY disappointed in FreezePop, because they were so hyped up, and Reflex was telling me how amazing they were, but then they totally sucked. I figured that it must've just been that their style of music just isn't as good live, and later heard that there were a lot of technical difficulties, but I just wasn't getting the same energy and vibe from the performers that the other performers had given me. That + mediocre music caused me to retire from the concert in the middle of the third number.
I headed back to the Smash room, but not for long, because I was staying with Inui and Co.. We were leaving since we stayed in a separate hotel, because Inui got a discount, and it cost 35$ per night, meaning it cost me only $5. It was good, because Inui is a good friend of mine, and I'm extremely fond of Jesse now, he's by far one of the coolest people I met. Ksizzle was also there, and we've been getting really close lately. Izumi, Zucco (moreso than before now) and Shadow are all also friends of mine, and they were there as well, so it was all great company. I crashed pretty early, because doubles was scheduled to start at 10am the next day, and I wanted to be ready. Only Jesse fell asleep before me.
Saturday:
I woke up late surprisingly. Normally, I'm up at the first crack of light, and I easily stir. I'll sit awake for an hour or two waiting for everyone else. I was surprised to find that nearly everyone had awoken before me, though I was able to stay up extremely long that day, so I guess the refreshing sleep payed off. We had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel, making the 5 dollars spent extremely worth. We then headed back to the venue.
Very few people were in the tourney room by the time we got there, which didn't surprise me, even though the tournament was scheduled to start in half an hour. People were just knocked out. I was feeling pretty confident against Snake lately (still am actually), and I saw Ally and No. I love Ally to death, though I'm always disappointed when we play, because just doesn't **** me like I expect him to, and we go even in friendlies. Finally, this time I decided I'd challenge him to a money match and see if he was just sandbagging because it's friendlies (or not trying his hardest which may include not camping excessively) or if it's just that I style countered him or whatever. Normally, Ally does loads of $1 money matches, and I asked if he wanted to do $1 or $5. He told me to set the amount, so I decided the middle ground was good, and we played for three dollars. I beat him game one on Battlefield, and I banned Halberd. He took me to FD, and it was close, but he won. He very wisely banned Lylat, and I probably counter-picked to Yoshi's far too conservatively. He decisively two-stocked me, but I wasn't mad, just glad to see that Ally did indeed remain a grade over all the other Snakes I'd been ******, and it encourages me to continue perfecting the Marth vs. Snake MU. I would've loved to play Ally in more friendlies, but other people desired his attention, and I needed to find Snakeee to warm up for doubles, so we parted ways for the time and made false promises to each other to play friendlies later.
I got Snakeee, and we warmed up. I considered using other characters in doubles, but Snakeee felt the most comfortable with my Marth and his ZSS, so we stuck to our mains the entire tourney. At first things were shaky, but over time, we really started to synchonize, and starting hitting epic teams combos. We ended up losing to Anti and Hunger, and we were kinda upset, because game 1 we lost due to an SD on Battlefield, which was our stage of the day. We took them back there, and won on game 2, but we lost game 3 on FD pretty solidly. ADHD and Fatal were just extremely well prepared, and beat us soundly, ending us at 9th place. I would've liked to have placed in the money, and perhaps MK would've helped me, but I'm okay, just a little sorry to let my partner down.
Sometime during this, I had gotten some Chicken Tenders. Naturally, they, along with all the other food at the venue, were overpriced, but they did taste good.
After doubles, Atomsk sought me out and asked if I wanted to go to McDonalds with him. I notified him that I just ate, but he repeated the question. I was glad he did. Atomsk is my favorite Smasher, and I replied in the affirmative, that I would accompany him, though I would not purchase food at the McDonalds. I wanted a sweet tea anyway. We talked about his doubles performance. He was upset that he didn't win, because he wanted the money to go see his girlfriend, and buy her nice things. I'm a romantic myself, so I could definitely sympathize with him. On the walk back, he told me I should stop playing to learn, and play to win, and that one day, I'd be a top player. He encouraged me to get upset if I messed up and lost, because that's the best way to get better.
Singles Pools was about to begin, and I played a few friendlies, but for the most part, I just went back to hanging out. I browsed the merchandise and considered playing some other games, though I regretfully passed on it. When pools began, I dropped a set to Culex, and just was not playing well at all (no discredit to Culex though, he's quite talented). Ninjalink was playing more inconsistently than me though, and I was able to beat him, even though I dropped a game to some random Falco (I SDed at 0, and failed to 0 to death every stock, I'm just cursed.) I also lost to Zucco on the stream. I just messed up a lot at the very end, and my momentum died right before the finish. The rest of my pool was pretty easy, and I got 2nd seed to Culex. In the middle of it, I had the honor of doing just a little bit of commentary, which is one of my biggest passions, probably even more than doing well in singles. I didn't really get a chance to comment on higher level matches, which I'm much better at, but it's still super fun for me to talk to everyone at home, and let them know what's going on (<3 Mrs. BlackWaltz). I was kinda embarrassed about playing so poorly on Livestream, but I'm kinda getting past the point of caring. It's well known that I'm an inconsistent player that could be really amazing and knows his stuff. However, until I can overcome the mental barriers holding me back, that's all I'll be, but one day, I'll be a top player.
To be honest, I was kinda disgusted with myself. I get upset, even a little sick, watching my Marth make so many errors, when I KNOW the right thing to do. I frequently question why I can't just play as I know how all the time. Hopefully, I'll find the answer soon.
I advanced to brackets, and fought GreenAce round 1. He was quite formidable, despite being Yoshi, but I was able to best him, and I advanced to round 2. My opponent was Anther, and I was excited, and extremely eager to fight Anther again. The first and last time we had met on the battlefield was at COT4 in pools. We both 2-0ed our entire pool full of MKs, Camalange, and R.I.G., except each other. We had an absolutely epic set on livestream, where I bested him game 1, lost game 2, and missed sweetspotting the edge on Lylat getting killed by Fsmash at last stock, high percents game three. Every single match was extremely close, last stock, high percent, and I played relatively well. Despite missing the sweetspot and losing the set over it, I had no johns. It was an honor to lose to such a worthy opponent, and I knew one day a chance for a rematch would arise. Today was the day. I was super determined to beat Anther, and I was slightly more prepared for Pikachu.
The set mimiced the previous one. He took game one this time, then I took game two, learning how to fight a true Pikachu. I was on the edge the entire time. The matches took long, because we were cautious and somewhat campy, but it was still extremely excited, both to play and to watch. Friends of mine and Anther's cheered from behind us every time one of us landed a hit, or DIed a potential kill move excellently. You would've thought Marth and Pikachu were both heavyweight, with both of us living to well over 150% every stock. I cursed myself everytime I failed to tipper an aerial that might've killed him, but was now stale and useless. At that percentage, Dancing Blade no longer comboed into the last hit, but I was probably over cautious, and missed a couple of kill opporunities..
Game three was on Smashville. Just like the previous games, we were evenly matched the entire way through the round. I solidly believe that we were never more than 40% apart during the entire set. This was the last match, so it counted even more than the previous two. Done were we with throwing our parlor tricks at each other, and trying to play on the opponent's inexperience in the match-up. We were both pros, we learned too fast. I couldn't expect him not to punish the next Utilt, and he knew that I'd not only DI another downsmash, but tech it and punish as well. One wrong move, and we'd die. I'm watching the clock the whole time, and it hits one minute left. I ask Anther if he's going to time me out. He's up in percentages, sitting on 143% while I'm at 172%. He replies that he doesn't know. He's planking the ledge, but I didn't approach. It didn't matter. At 172%, I can't do anything. One whiff, and I'm gone, and Pikachu is too agile to hit with a kill move. I try to spot an opening, but inexperience against a good Pikachu failed me, and I didn't know how to punish Pikachu planking. Ledge drop quick attack.
The clock hit 20 seconds and I lost my resolve. I had already submitted to defeat. I could not wrack up 30% on a player bent on evasion in this amount of time. I considered committing suicide, but it would've been dishonorable, similar to simply knocking all the pieces off the board when both you and your opponent see that they have cornered you with a guaranteed checkmate in three turns. "3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . GAME! Sudden Death!" Haha, what a joke. We'd been playing sudden death for the last 3 minutes. I quit the match. Looking back, I can't recall if I shook Anther's hand, and I hope I did. I like Anther, but I was pretty sad. Not sad because I lost, but just because the set had been tainted. I felt robbed. After COT4, I was so pumped, and now just to look back and know that Anther had never slain me, nor I him, and that he had just timed me out made me feel like my unfinished business was still yet to be resolved. One of my truest rivals and favorite smashers had indeed just resorted to timing me out. I couldn't blame him. I main Marth. He mains Pikachu. He does what he can, for himself, and for the pride of his fans.
I look inside myself and I'm comforted with the knowledge that if it were me up by 30% I would have fought to the death. Sometimes, it's more than just winning or losing. Sometimes, it's about fighting the good fight, which is why I can still love this game, even when so many other players hate it or find it boring. Some might say I have a scrub mentality, to think that I have fun, and that's what really counts. Perhaps, you're probably right. Nevertheless, I value the pleasures I find in this game. Anther is a true pro. He plays to win. I don't need to forgive him for timing me out, it's part of the game, and no offense was made. Still, it sits cold in my heart thinking of what could've happened if there was no timer. Would I have prevailed, or would he. I long to know, but it's lost to history now. I can only promise myself that I'll polish my skill, and be ready for anything next time.
My next opponent was Jesse, which saddened me. I had just met Jesse and liked him a lot, and though we had yet to play, I had a distinct feeling he was not on my skill level, and I was proven correct, utterly destroying him round one. Round two, he counter-picks me to FD after I banned Halberd, and the **** ensues. However, a series of technical errors result in me SDing at 53%. Now, Jesse is pretty good, I've just gotten really good at the Snake MU, and he lacked my experience. Still, it's pretty hard to make a comeback versus Snake. He takes the round.
I'm slightly frustrated, but realize that it should be no sweat to win R3. I take him back to FD after he banned Lylat, knowing that I severely out-played him on the stage. Once again I self-destructed. I impressed myself, by not letting it get to my head. I managed to make an amazing comeback. It wasn't enough though, I got Utilted and died. Oddly, I wasn't upset at all. I liked Jesse enough to feel comfortable with him advancing, even if I didn't think he was better than me. He was way cool enough that I knew he wouldn't hold the victory over my head, and I respect him enough to let him have his win honorably. I thought to myself, "Atomsk would be disappointed," but quickly shook it from my head, and decided that I would continue to hone my skill, and take the next one.
Now that I was eliminated from all tourney, I was free to resume my position at the livestream. I commented a few matches, though OWM was running the bracket very smoothly, and didn't want to keep switching between TIO and the chat, so I was unable to attend to them as much as I had before. I was sad when Ally beat Atomsk, but I had to abandon the commentary when Ally beat Jason, because I knew Jason let his opponent get into his head way too much. Concerned for him, I left to console him, and picked Snake against him while he saw how many times he could deplete one of my 99 stocks in 8 minutes, while I learned how to play Snake.
Still, he wasn't in the emotional mindset to fight ADHD. Though he did so, he played very poorly, as he did against Ally, and ADHD destroyed him. He didn't mind that as much though, as he expected to lose in his condition, and wanted to see if ADHD could beat Ally.
I took to the stage next to ADHD. He lives near me, and we practice together a lot, and have hung out several times outside of Smash. We've gotten pretty close, and though I'm fond of Ally, I was definitely rooting for ADHD. I assumed the spot next to him, and told him I would coach him. He always gets mad at me, because his opponent's often ask me how to beat him, and though I never betray any of his personal habits, I inform them about overlook-able facts regarding Diddy. Though I usually want ADHD to win his matches, it frustrates me to watch people remain ignorant about core game knowledge, especially since Diddy is a top tier character, so I'll usually teach them a few tricks about the match-up. He complains I never help him, even though we both know that's false, and I've helped him break many a bad habit, and continue to try and polish his game. This time, I'd be helping him beat Ally.
The match began, and both ADHD and I are standing on the right, while Ally and Lain are sitting on the left. Most of the crowd is cheering for ADHD, and everyone is very tense, largely attributed to the fact that both Mew2King and MetaKnight were absent for Grand Finals. It was weird in how comfortable it was, as I had sat been aside champion caliber player many a time. In fact, I sat next to M2k when he fought Ally at Genesis. Now, I was going to help ADHD do what M2k had lost to resolve to do: smite my Candian friend. I'd been sitting alongside Ally at times as well, cheering him on, and thinking of it, it reminded me that his girlfriend was usually there was well, and she was nowhere to be seen. I was quite curious as to what she could be doing that was more important than Grand Finals (I found out later that she was sleeping upstairs). Still, Grand Finals had to progress without her, and I had to worry about guiding ADHD to beating Ally.
It worked. ADHD is extremely talented, and took my advice quickly. As the set was progressing, no one in the world wanted ADHD to win more than me except he himself. I was extremely tense, and yelled at him to DI everything, which he did not fail me in. Ally's DI was impeccable, and I would just swear under my breath everytime he SDIed an fsmash or survived some attack at 200%+. At the very end, he traded hits with Ally's ftilt using a Monkey Flip Kick, and I was like, "****, don't die on me now, DI IT!" He succeeded, and almost a full second later, Ally died off the right side of the screen. Monkey Flip Kick is not a kill move, but Ally was at 283%. The screen flashed game, and there was half a second of silence as we all processed what happened (and I thanked God Ally chose ftilt instead of Utilt which would've won him that round). I screamed first, a resounding roar of "YES!" pumping my fist strongly into the air, ecstatic over his victory. I hugged him and lifted him into the air. Several people tried to climb up and help, but they only ended up putting him in a stupid position and almost dropped him, so I set him back down. I wanted to say good game to Ally, but he left (I later found out that he wanted to buy his girlfriend a gift with the prize money, and that's why he was sad.) I couldn't dwell on him though. This was a victory for us. I started an "ADHD" chant, and he and I ran over to the main table, and greeted the livestream. I celebrated with him for the next 20 minutes, but I knew he and the others were probably going off to have a drink and that pretty much everyone was going to, but I do not drink, so we parted ways until the next day.
The smash room has significantly emptied by now, as it was past 2:30 am. Players were either partying or sleeping, but I was in luck. I spotted D1, Lord Knight, and Blackanese, and I played them in friendlies. Blacka is too funny, and D1 is my first friend in from the smash community. It was really great to see Lord Knight as well, just because I haven't seen him in such a long time, even though he lives in New Jersey. He seemed pretty confident he was going to win BlazBlue the next day. Even luckier was that soon M2k, Mango, and Milktea joined us.
Mango was slightly drunk, and Milktea was taking care of him. I met Mango and Milktea at Genesis, and grew quite fond of them both, so it was really great to see them again. Outside of the NY/NJ players, Mango is my favorite melee player. His style is just so cool. He quite clearly gets his point across, usually in a comical way, using so few words, and when he just walks around you feel like he's thinking, "I don't give a ****, I'm Mango." He's straight up with you, and I just can't find any reason to dislike him. Sure he's a little cocky, who isn't? He's still the best Melee player right now. I seriously love this guy, and he's one of the reasons I'm getting back into Melee.
Milktea was a player who I always appreciated, but since she's female, it's annoying to try to get to know her at first. Most of you know how it is. I don't have any problems talking to females, but it's annoying when you just want to be someone's friend, because you sounds so stupid trying to introduce yourself. I didn't exactly want to IM her and be like, "Hey, I'm Pierce. I read your posts on smashboards, and unlike every other guy, I don't want to go out with you, I just think you're pretty cool and I just want to be your friend." Obviously, it sounds extremely dumb. Girls are so hard to make friends with in communities like this, because they're so scarce, they're like a commodity, and they're bound to think you're just one of those online creeps if you just IM them out of the blue. Plus they're going to think that you're only going out of your way to talk to them because they're a girl, and then you realize that it IS part of the reason you're going out of your way to talk to them, but you don't necessarily have to have a crush on them just to want to talk to them. Sometimes I just want to talk to a girl because it's DIFFERENT than a guy. They think and act differently, and are generally more amusing and pleasant (and smell better.) It's a different flavor of friend. So, I got Inui to introduce me and Genesis so I didn't seem like a stalker or something, and though we didn't spend an abundance of time together at Genesis, she still remembered me, and we became better friends at SNES. I'm super glad, because it means now I don't have to feel all weird if I want to talk to her online or something. God bless Inui.
M2k played some Brawl friendlies with Mango. The matches were hilarious, because M2k doesn't know how to sandbag, and we all know Mango doesn't really play Brawl. However, some of his amazing habits payed off tremendously. Mango expected to be in hitstun and that airdodging was just not a good idea from his melee habits, so he actually managed to do very well against m2k in that regard. He also completely ***** Dair camping. I personally am of the mindset that Mango could become the best Falco if he played Brawl, but he won't. "Too much pride" he said, when we were discussing it the next day.
Naturally, we migrated to Melee, which I didn't mind at all. We played free for all pokemon battles (only Pokeballs on high, m2k loves it and I'll admit it's grown on me) after Mango and Milktea retired for the night, and I probably played about 10 matches before calling it a night myself. I let someone else play, and then Nacho (God bless you Nacho), told me where there was a cot I could sleep in, in the medical room, and then showed me the way. It was pretty cozy, and I had all my stuff with me. I changed into night gear, and knocked out for about 4 hours (5-9.)
Sunday:
It was a short rest, but an amazing one, and I quickly headed back into the smash room. On the way there, I was intercepted by beautiful women offering me a free water canteen, and trying to give me a free hand massage, in an attempt to get me to pay a dollar a minute for a back rub. Now, I'm quite sure that if I would've sat down in that chair, and let those beautiful girls touch me, I would've quickly lost track of time, and hence, I would've lost money I couldn't afford to spend. The ladies were good company, so I lingered and flirted around a little, but I had Ksizzle pull me away when he passed through. They were far too tempting.
Most of my friends were no where to be seen, but it was cool. I put my suitcase back into the obscure corner where no one would bother it and saw two guys player Soul Caliber II on the Gamecube. SCII is one of my favorite games (I don't play competitively though) so I talked to the guys for a bit, and they informed me that they had just bought it for $15. I didn't have much money left after all the food (rooming that one night with Inui only cost me $5, so I saved a lot there) and playing BlackWaltz my portion of the gas and at tolls. Still, this would be my final souvenir to accompany my GameUnicon shirt and my Konomi Kode and BrentalFloss CDs. I bought a copy after browsing the merchandise more and chatting with the vendors.
I ran into NinjaLink and Crismas, and we hung out for a bit. Crismas directed me to where I could find some coffee (and it was very affordable compared to all the rest of the overpriced food there). I bought some coffee and breakfest, depleting my funds, and made my way back to the smash room.
The Melee tourney was about to begin. I love Melee (I'm sure I said several times in this post that I'm picking it up again.) I saw Meep, and we started playing friendlies. Then I played with several other people, both Melee and Brawl players. I learn pretty fast, so my tech skill was slowly building up, and I learned just a few basic MUs using Marth. I mained Marth back in the day, which is really the reason I'm a Marth main and not a MK main, because when the game first came out, I already knew off the trailer that MK was going to be broken and fun. I was right, and picked up as my main, but couldn't really get accustom to flying. My Metaknight was good, and I also played Marth and Mario. Slowly, I played mostly just Marth, because Melee just made him my best character since so much carried over. Reverting back to Melee was weird though, because I kept trying to use Uairs when I landed, instead of L-Cancelling Dairs. Still, my L-Cancelling was getting to be much better, I had decent spacing, and wavedashing was always easy for me.
After a little while, I met up with m2k, Mango, MilkTea, and Darc. Doom had introduced me to Darc at Apex, but we didn't really chill. I played a couple of friendlies with all of them, but they were participating in tourney, and I was not, so I bounced around, learning more about each of them, and cheering M2k and Mango on in their matches when they were called. It was weird voting for Mango against Cort, since technically Cort represents EC, and Mango WC, but I ended up not caring. Like I said, I'm extremely fond of Mango, and seeing as how I know him, I wasn't going to root for a smasher I'd only heard of but never met before.
I cheered on M2k while he was fighting Gmoney. I knew he was nervous about fighting Mango in tourney again. He was doing fine in friendlies, but his mind was taunted by the previous days events in Brawl, and his record with Mango. Later he also told me that excessive cheering for him also made him more nervous, and I made it a point to celebrate each stock he took with myself privately.
It wasn't too long before m2k and Mango made their way to each other in Finals. Mango chose Falco, and M2k chose Marth. Naturally, I was rooting for M2k. He was up 3 stocks to 1, and I thought to myself that perhaps this R1 victory would give him the confidence he needed to take the set and break the curse. But m2k got spiked and lost a stock, and it destroyed his mentality. He started playing extremely poorly, and permitted Mango to take the game. His mind wasn't in the right place, and the crowd was being distracting. I knew he wasn't going to beat Mango, and so did he. After losing game two, he didn't even finish the set. He got up and left. I knew he needed some time to think, so I left him alone for a short while, but then went to find him when his match against Hax was called. It didn't take me long. He was with Dac outside. He told me he didn't want to play vs. Hax. When we got inside, M2k went to Hax and told him he wasn't playing and for Hax to fight Mango. M2k knew that his current mentality wouldn't let him beat Mango, and he'd need more time than we had to get himself straight.
He was quite upset and distraught, but I, alongside NinjaLink, Crismas, Lain, MilkTea, and Dac gave him a pep-talk, and I think it helped cheer him up a bit. Mango beat Hax in Grand Finals, but we all missed the fight.
From there, it was pretty much over. M2k and Dac left to go eat. I chilled with Mango some more, but people started slowly leaving. Not too much longer after, I also decided it was time to go home. BlackWaltz was still in the room, so he was easy to find, but it took us a little while to hunt down Doom, Ksizzle and ADHD. BlackWaltz and Doom needed to get their Wiis, and I did my goodbyes. I saw m2k in the parking lot, and we hung out for a bit. He ***** me in a foot race, and I'm pretty fast. Dac was eager to get him in the car and go though, so we headed back, and after a few more jokes with everyone who was departing (which was like everyone) we all left.
SNES was a blast. The moral of the story is, confidence is a super important factor in any competition. I perform poorly sometimes when I lose my confidence, and I get nervous easily when I play. Even m2k does. Mango is amazing, because he can really feed off a crowd, and keep his head together. Anyone can be a top smasher, you just have to believe in yourself.
The last thing I have to say is that I am so proud of everyone because there was 0 Melee vs. Brawl beef. Melee players sampled Brawl a little (EVEN MANGO) and many Brawl players decided that Sunday was the Melee tourney, and hence a day for Melee. Furthermore, we got along with the SF community extremely well. If every even continues to go like this, I can see both Melee and Brawl continuing to be successful games for a long time.
<3
