Player Profiles-episode 1 featuring M2K!

About a year ago, an old college buddy of mine(it's not secretly me if that's what you were wondering LOL) emailed me saying that he was going to journalism school to pursue sports writing. But recently, he dropped out to pursue other jobs and is hoping to catch onto a website and write as a blogger or feature writer. I don't think he'll earn any money from it, but it inspired me to write about some players that i think are fascinating figures in MELEE.

I'm gonna write about 4 players and that's it: M2K, Jman, HungryBox, and then Mango in that order. I've had brief small talk convos with each guy at past tournaments, but I'm really not friends with them. That said, I RESPECT each and every one of them. I think they're incredibly interesting, and i'm going to enjoy writing about them. This is mostly commentary and just how I see things. I don't mean any harm to these guys, and i'm going to try to write as fairly as possible.



Episode 1--Jan 24th 2010
Mew2King: 50% Kobe Bryant, 50% Anakin Skywalker, 10,000% TRAGIC FIGURE.
The first time I saw Mew2King in person was at MLG Chicago 2006. At that point, I had finally learned how to L-Cancel and Wavedash, two “advanced techs” that I had working on for a better part of a year. I thought I’d never get shield grabbed again. As a rookie, I watched with my own eyes one of the best sets ever: Mew2King-Fox vs Azen-Marth( (it’s on youtube). I had never seen up-air combos work to that extent. I never saw such precise laser camping before. I had never seen that gay-fucking fox illusion from the ledge work so well. Even if he wasn’t a real robot, he certainly played like one. After I saw Azen lose, I instantly thought this was the best fox player the world had ever seen. I thought, “Jason Zimmerman is the chosen one; he’s Darth Vader with a pair of glasses.” (on a side note, after Azen lost, he said he could have beaten m2k with his Luigi but didn’t feel like it).

Skip some four years, insert a broken controller, a black-caped Marth, a silver Sheik, a west coast Mango winning Pound 3 and 4, Mew2king now seems more human than ever. In 2010, after barely getting 5th place in Melee singles at Pound 4, I no longer feel the same sense of awe and wonder. I don’t look at him with the admiration that I used to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still wildly entertained by his gameplay, but now I feel something else. I feel sorry for him; a deep sense of pity for a person who’s at a fixed point in life that won’t change until he quits Smash.


**Stuck in Ken’s Shadow**. Regardless of how much he has improved the Marth metagame, part of me believes that the memories of Ken Hoang still haunt him. Much like Kobe Bryant, he’s stuck between the great players of the past and ones that will dominate the future. You might be thinking, “what’s so bad about being Kobe Bryant? That guy is amazing”. It’s true, I’m a Kobe fan myself. But the problem is that Kobe Bryant will never be the GOAT(Greatest of All Time). Neither will M2K. Ken retired before M2K could truly prove he was better and Mango ended up beating him within a year after that. I do think M2K could have beaten Ken around EVO 2K7, but it was too late. M2K missed his window. I can’t imagine the level of frustration that would cause; to have the ability to beat the best but not the opportunity. To this day, I honestly believe it’s one of his biggest regrets in Smash.


**No Compensation**. Some people might be jealous of M2K, envious of all the success that he’s had with both Brawl and Melee. Smashers look at his videos and wish they could reproduce those same results. People steal his “secret techniques” and copy his edgeguards all the time. Many smashers are jealous of his tournament earnings, the money he’s earned. But to me, I would argue that he’s underpaid as a smasher. His contributions to the metagame in both Brawl and Melee are beyond dollars and cents. You can’t put a price tag on the amount he’s given to the community, and he’ll never get the money he deserves. Furthermore, I wouldn’t trade my life for Jason Zimmerman’s for any amount of cold cash. I like Mew2King, I think he’s definitely a nice guy(even tho my fav smasher Drephen hates him LOL), but I see a chasm of disappointment. I think the losses he feels are deeper than any 1st Place finishes he’s won. We steal from him all the time, and yet the money he earns from tournaments isn’t enough to replace his sense of self worth. He’s a slave to the game, and the community takes more than he can give.

Normally, I would tell a person in this situation to suck it up, to be a real man. But for Mew2King, I think it’s too late. It takes an incredibly creative mind to play like he does, but it takes a fractured spirit to feel that amount of disappointment. Even though tournaments seem like an analogy to life, it really has nothing to do with it. Even if you win at Smash, you may end up losing in other areas of life. As a spectator, I would love to watch M2K's Marth and Fox in Grand Finals at every tournament. But for his own sake, I hope that M2K quits the game soon. I sound like a jerk and an idiot, but I’d rather see him move on to something else that might make him happy. Despite all his tech skill, Mew2King has and never will be a robot; but I wonder if he would prefer to be a machine with no emotion in order to avoid the regrets and dissatisfaction of Smash.

first will edit post when don't reading

WTF at the end I hope you don't insult and I hope your off. If you haven't you should ask him if this is OK and maybe get some more info. Other people may not like being posted about so personally.

I first read it as 10,000% TRAGIC FAILURE and i lol'ed

Honestly,

some of you are really taking ssbm to serious. It's a game after all. Play it and have fun.
If you don't have fun, stop playing. That's simple and everthing there is about it.

This reads like a sensationalist exposition piece and then the reader notices you don't have any sources...This sort of article would be interesting if you wrote it around an interview with M2K and included more of an in-depth history of his tournament play.

I like the idea of Smasher profiles but this is not about M2K. If you reread your post you'll find a solid majority of declarative sentences begin with "I." "I no longer feel the same sense of awe and wonder," "I like mew2king."

Worse is when you combine these sentences with expositions about what M2K apparently thinks, "I honestly believe it’s one of his biggest regrets in Smash."

--really? It is fascinating to all of us readers to hear what you believe, truly!

.

Now don't get me wrong, I loathe the idea of putting you off writing the rest of these or anything for that matter. Your goal is an interesting one and Smash could use a lot more media coverage, that you've begun an amateur journalism project is totally awesome.

Anyway, sorry I'm being hard on you, I like the idea of the project but your writing suffers from a few techniques which cheapen your message. You begin with the claim that M2K is like 100 tragic figures. Ignoring the truth of this claim, it's somewhat offensive to read your laying down of pity on Jason without producing concrete examples of his downfalls. This point is a tenuous one, you do cite the community's stealing of his "secret techniques" (why was that in quotes?) which those of us who follow tournament videos can validate. Ideally the evidence would be a bit more concrete.

You emphasize words and phrases with coloured highlights. An essay works significance into an idea from the context and quality of prose. The highlighted sentences in an essay already broken up by brief subject headers hinder both the natural emphatic connotations of the paragraphs and break up the flow. The reader is shocked by the bold-faced, red, "I feel sorry for him," and "suck it up...be a real man." These phrases obscure your thesis. You mean to say that M2K has given loads to the community, worked harder than anyone else, but he never held the spotlight--instead the melodramatic expositions in your coloured phrases (I imagine these being read by Don LaFontaine) unintentionally transform the essay into a series of jabs at M2K!

tl;dr: this essay is more about you than it's about M2K! Also! Psychoanalysis can be offensive! Cite evidence if you're going to attribute sentiment or give advice!

I'd be a little angry if I was M2K...

@n1000, LOL, dude i'm not trying to be a journalist. this is just what i think. in the OP, i said it's mostly commentary. i did the highlights cuz it looks cool and bc most ppl won't read the whole thing. i'm not trying to be a professional on freaking smashboards lol

@xbombr, maybe M2K will be mad, but i definitely wasn't trying to start anything whack. to me, m2k is classic tragic figure persona. when i write jman's thing, it's completely different. he's not a tragic figure at all to me. believe me, i'll write how i feel. i like all these guys, but these are my opinions.

@insane crazy, i'll edit one part of the last paragraph, but it'll still stand as what it is.

Devil Ray said:

@n1000, LOL, dude i'm not trying to be a journalist. this is just what i think. in the OP, i said it's mostly commentary. i did the highlights cuz it looks cool and bc most ppl won't read the whole thing. i'm not trying to be a professional on freaking smashboards lol

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In that case its just poorly written and you're a bad writer

I don't know why your unjustified opinions deserve a formatted, dramatically titled essay series

that being said you can make everything okay by actually striving to achieve something like a high quality article series about smash (that would be amazing)

honestly, what do you hope to achieve by writing/posting these if you have no ambition for them? Why should anybody read them?

well, i think it's written all right for a post on smashboards. if you think it's written that badly, that's fair game. your opinion is your opinion.

the reason why i'm not "striving to achieve" is bc i don't know if i'll be motivated to write high quality stuff about smash on a regular basis. i'm going to write about 4 unique and great players and that's it.

to the last point, i think mango and hbox have plenty of potential (jman too, but there's a catch). in fact, M2K can still get better and sharpen his skills. i don't think i wrote otherwise. i just feel as great as M2K has become, there's a part of me that feels sorry for the dude.

Awww that was really touching ray. I didnt know you had it in you.

I thought the post was very colorful in more ways than one.

Yes there was blue.

Also you should also do the really cool smashers that no one knows about about about about. echo echo echo.

nO POSTS ABOUT INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS! *LOCKED*

^I feel like that crew pretty much retired Ken

remember, ken won evo 2007. he didn't do that well at OC3, but he won evo right after. m2k is the best marth ever, but ken had a better record against him if you include their entire tourney history.

@sveet: thanks, bro. i'm a nice guy at heart :-P

i dont see what inspired you to think anyone gave a **** about your opinion of m2k.

yeah. If you include when M2k wasn't at the top of his game, Ken was better. That's a no brainer. The point is, M2k was the best at melee at one point in time, and he still has his championship status in Brawl unless ADHD proves to beat him a few more times.

Must be weird to have people that don't know you pretend like they do and write overly dramatic stories about it on the internet.

TL? said:

Must be weird to have people that don't know you pretend like they do and write overly dramatic stories about it on the internet.

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I agree. This thread is straight up gossip.

Problem2 said:

I agree. This thread is straight up gossip.

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yeah this is kind of messed up to say about someone you don't know. This thread reminds me of commentators during tennis tournys, putting players down about them on tv and not saying it to them to their face.