(Completed as of 7/21/16 8:22 AM CST)
This is a month old but I finally got around to posting this thanks to the Lucas discord reminder!
Date: 6/19/16
Tournament: Smash Fight Club (SFC), Weekly Tourney
Brackets: (copy and paste in url) Smashunited.challonge.com/SFC49 Smash Pit Bracket: Smashunited.challonge.com/SFC49Pit
Location: Houston, Texas
DISCLAIMER: Our tournament had a redemption bracket called the "Smash Pit" for those that go 0-2 in winner's and lose round 1/2 of the loser's bracket. So my placing may not be eligible.
Placing: 2nd in Smash Pit (a.k.a Redemption Bracket)
This was my first time attending a local tournament with special thanks to my friend Juan for driving me and we had a blast! Off to the games!
For my first match I fought against "SS I JustAlex", a Donkey Kong main. The first stage was either smashville or town and city (my bad), since this was my first local weekly I decided to go in with the mindset of using b-reversed pk fires to space and zair to play as safe as possible and go for grabs when the opportunity arises... boy did that work out for me. This Donkey Kong player really pushed me around. You see I was unfamiliar with the matchup and was under the assumption that this would be an easy match since the Donkey Kongs I faced in an online tourney a while back and some For Glory (pukes inside) did not give me any trouble. I remember starting the match off with some zairs and spaced pk fire's. The Donkey Kong player proceeded to shield them and around that time i was getting myself almost a full screen distance vs him (sounds really campy). He soons approaches me with dash attacks that I try to challenge with more pk fire's and I fail at that due to startup frames. I had a bad running habit into shield that he exploited by grabbing me, throwing me up and using a mix of up tilts, and down b at low percent and up air at mid to high percents. Since my spacing strategy did not work and I was far behind in percent, I decided to approach the Donkey Kong once I got him off me with fairs. THIS GUY, this guy right here stuffed all of my aerial fair approaches, regardless of short hop or not with bairs. He literally set up a wall of ascending and descending bairs that seemed impenetrable for me to pass. If I recall correctly, it even beat out my zair. He would then close the distance on me when I would be grounded and dance around me and my shield with well spaced bairs. That move is so fast and I know now that I need to work on a way to beat it or get around it. Anyway I lost the first match. So for the 2nd match I thought of switching to my other main of Shulk but after my poor performance at TGC 6 of playing Shulk round 1, and then switching to Lucas after I lost the first game, I decided to stick with Lucas because I was determined to not give up on the matchup and focused on learning as much as I could. After my thoughts were together, I counter-picked to Duck Hunt because I wanted a open space where it would be much easier for me to land my bread and butter down throw footstool to jab lock combo which is the the basis of my lucas when I'm not spacing and playing aggressive. To my dismay I rarely got the chance to do it, his Donkey Kong was too mobile for me. This game was basically a run-back of the first game except for two differences: 1. First stock I died to a down b shield break from full shield health. 2. Second stock I died to an unsuspecting b-reverse max charge Giant Punch that was performed while he was running off of the left side of the bush on the right side of the stage. I held my shield up but let go of it right before impact. My excuse is my timing was off due to playing decent players exclusively on WI-FI but no johns. After the match I asked the guy what my habits were and he told me that I played keep-away for almost the whole match and once he got through my defenses he dominated me.
So "SS I JustAlex" sent me to losers. No I was not depressed because that happened to me last time, but I was kinda shaken to be put in losers THAT fast.
Moving along to the 2nd match. The bracket says I fought TNT but I recall fighting Bam, a Rosalina player. It must have been an error in the bracket (The commentators even say it at the end of my streamed match;it's at the bottom of my post). So for Bam, the Rosalina, our first match was on Town and City. I focused on getting Luma out of the way with Pk Fire's and Zair's while going for grabs on moves that I thought were laggy. At first the plan worked out since Bam rolls a lot and luma triggers Pk fire's explosion. He also used a lot of dash attacks that I ran into trying to challenge with fair's. I felt really confident in this match-up but I lost the first match due to going for footstool combos at low percents which DO NOT work on Rosalina because she flies too high after down throw. Around mid percents, it works, but he got luma to hit me during down throw to save his hide. The match boiled down to me losing to mis-spaced fairs above his head when I was landing and eating an F/Up smash to the crotch. Bam also loved to throw me which put me in the fair situations. I really hoped to hit him with fair before he got a smash attack out but my mis-spacing and Rosalina's hitbox did not allow any fair's to connect. A funny coincidence during the first stock of the first game is at one point during the match he hit me with an f smash that sent me close to the blast zone, after the hit I drifted towards the ledge, double jumped away and used pk magnet to stall to the bottom left hand corner of the blase zone to safely use pk thunder to recover... or so I thought. Here comes Bam jumping after me while I am starting up my recovery just to use Gravitational pull killing me AND him in the process due to end lag. I exploded into laughter, that was a classic to me, it was totally unexpected on my end. Another thing to note about the town and city match is that whenever he hit me with up tilts, up throw, up smash, or up air, when I would be in the bubble offscreen I would proceed to b- reverse magnet to mix-up my landing (in hindsight that's a bit too high). None of them worked because Bam would either jump straight up off a platform or from the ground and intentionally not attempt to follow my drift, so he made my magnet momentum shifts null and void and hit me with another up air; it's like he was just waiting to actually see me on screen before going for any punish.
For the second match vs Bam I forgot where we go, but in the end I win. So for the tie breaker, Bam counter-picks to Dreamland. I do not remember in great detail this match so I'm sorry for my sparse details; this match goes way better for me during the first stock since I somewhat adjusted to his play-style and I take his stock with ease. I then lose the second stock shortly thereafter. Bam started to beat me up last stock with up throws, some tilts, and hitting me threw the platforms thus sending me into an air-dodge frenzy. I noticed the clock starting to tick down around a minute and 50 seconds and I look at both of our percents. I'm sitting at 89% while he is in the 10's. I lunge at him and get a down throw into 2 nairs and a sour-spot fair. Noticing how aggressive I'm playing Bam decides to run away from me since he has the percent lead. Long story short: I racked Bam up to somewhere around 69% to somewhere in the 70's while he tacked on very little damage on me. The game ended in a time out with him using Launch star offstage to prevent me from getting any more percent on him to turn the tides.
I felt like I had a good run and was happy to make it to a local. I then played friendlies and watched other competitor's until I was notified about my next match that caught me by surprise. I even talked with Krebs (the Tournament Organizer) to figure this out, I was for sure I was out of the tournament until he showed me the bracket and explained Smash Pit to me.
Happy to get more matches I went on to play "TnT Pil0t" a Villager. When we arrived at the setup he started talking mess which sounded to me like he was trying to raise he ego. I asked him about bans and he was we're starting on "Starterville", and I was like uhhh, ok? I just wanted to get my matches in. Anyway I banned smashville and town and city so we went to lylat for the first game. With my experience with villagers I had my mind prepared for nairs, slingshots, and gimps. This guy did none of that. He only hit me with fair twice. I then got a down throw on him, a few nairs and dairs conversions from down throws, and Lucas pk hoo-hah for the kill. I won the first match hands down. He then begin to get excited and counter picked to Smashville. I noticed TnT Pil0t was not very good in my opinion or rather unfamiliar with the Lucas match-up. He loved using Lloid rockets and at one point I killed him with a point blank reflected f-smash from a Lloid rocket around 30-40%. In summary he made the match way too easy for any novice Lucas player. This is going to sound super disrespectful and rude but to me it felt like I held my guard up for all the punches in a boxing match but no big blows came way.
With that out of the way my next fight was vs. a 13-14 year old named Trueshot, a Mario main who I enjoyed playing friendly doubles with earlier. For our first match, I took him to Final Destination. Now I feel really comfortable in the Mario matchup having played several matches vs another Mario main from a Twitch stream that I fought during his online tourney and in viewer battles (forgot his name at the moment, will add later.). I slept on the kid since he was young so I doubted he would have a strategy. I quickly figured out he knew the Mario basics and probably learned a thing or two from Ally with his usage of down throw to up-tilts and down throw to up air and up b strings. Once I got hit by those and his on-stage fair and bair game, I knew he was no slouch.
I remember how I played the match so I'll just elaborate on that and hopefully help a few Lucas players along the way. When the match started, the first thing I did was use b-reverse PSI magnets in neutral from afar and a good distance in front of Mario, since one of his main zoning tools is fireball pressure. Whenever I caught a fireball near him I would cancel it and punish with a fair (zair can work here also). I also decided to zone him out with retreating b-reverse pk fire's. (I know I say it a lot but it's how I always pk fire until one day I get punished hard for it.) Once Trueshot had enough of my pk fire's or when I feel like mixing it up, I would throw in a couple or at least 3 retreating and approaching zairs back to back to nullify his attempts to cape an incoming pk fire. As for mario's ground game, I just make sure I stay out of grab range, and go for down tilt to grab, or pivot grabs. In the first match since we were on Final Destination, I managed to land multiple instances of Lucas's jablock combo and ended them with up smashes. Trueshot expressed dissatisfaction with this by calling it "Fancy" and "Jank", well it worked out for me in the end and boy does it feel good to land consistently. In the match I also opted for down throw to bairs and using fast fall nairs offstage to footstool if possible (footstool may not always be required) to drag him down and exploit his recovery range similar to how yoshi, pikachu, and luigi players will use a multi-hit move for "spikes". For the fast fall footstool, I usually tend to get it from a throw near the edge, then I wait for them to be below the stage and I short or full hop (depending on situation and preference) and input a fast fall nair while descending so I only get the first 3 hits. Sometimes the opponent would end below me while a few times they would end above me resulting in a footstool by me. I do remember taking one stock by just getting an intentional footstool after I threw him off stage and he tried to double jump to ledge snap.
As for avoiding fludd I use PSI magnet just so it will not screw up my pk thunder while also stalling in the air. I also occasionally double jumped into fludd and waited the knockback out before I recovered with pk thunder or a zair. Remember to mix up your recovery if you are proficient enough with b-reverse pk magnet below and above the ledge, it can save ya' from fludd or some nasty aerials as you drift towards the ledge, I like to use it as a bait and drift close to people then at the last second just magnet away from the ledge to dodge their attack then magnet again towards the stage (will put you under the stage), double jump then snap the ledge or zair it. Also a thing I forgot to note is that I play aggressive during the match when the percent is just around the 30% mark and most of the match thereafter since I am comfortable with my ability in the match-up.
I took the first match and he decided to counter-pick dreamland. I can't recall exactly what happened but I know I must have been feeling myself too much during the second match and practically gave it to him. I also played a little bit safer on dreamland since I was not as likely to get the jab lock combos I always go for on dreamland. So I lose the 2nd match and I counter-pick to Lylat. Trueshot expresses his salt with Lylat and talks about he hates the stage. I somewhat felt a little confident before the match started and I was right to do so. On Lylat I did my usual spacing as Lucas but I also used to platforms to my advantage to continue nair strings from down throw, into grab resets, bairs, jab locks, etc. Fighting Trueshot on Lylat Cruise felt like i was fighting a different player. The previous play-style he showed me the last two matches was nowhere to be found. I'm glad I practiced on Lylat Cruise in Wi-Fi tgat way the stage could not destroy my recovery unless I get blown under the stage and tech wrong. Back to the match Trueshot even managed to get gimped by the stage. and had an unfortunate Self Destruct with assistance by Lylat Cruise. Unrelated but if you can send the opponent far from the stage, try to go for a pk fire offstage and practice the timing so regardless if you are above or below them, they will fall/jump into the fire, or you could just time it with a recovery, oh and pk thunder is great for challenging Mario's and Captain Falcon's as long as you do not get the ball to hit; just treat it the same as Ness's pk thunder when going for gimps: hit with the trail and then bail.
I won the 3rd match and Trueshot was not happy that he lost to my shennagians, and Lylat Cruise. The match vs. Vertaichi I do not recall, I know it's late in my post but one of my matches my opponent left in advance after they lost in winners but I cannot recall who. For my 5th match (I know I skipped 4th but I'm just going by the bracket), I had a run-back vs Trueshot, since he made out of loser's in the Smash Pit bracket and this time he came back with a vengeance. We started to ban stages and I banned Smashville and Town and city, (not sliding of the ledge this time) while Trueshot banned Dreamland and Castle Siege. I told him not to ban Castle Siege once he said it because I would not take him there, but he was insistent on banning Castle Siege telling me that he will not be taken there and I replied with an OK (I tried to give him a way out, I really did). So then I took the minor to Lylat Cruise and he reeled his head back and exclaimed that he forget about Lylat Cruise. No need to type a lot here, because that match was smooooth sailing
. The second match he took me to Halberd, where he was on tilt and used every ounce of skill he could muster to bring me down. After the bloodshed, I was victorious. Trueshot slumped in his chair and ranted to me about Lylat Cruise. I patted him on the back and told him this, "I also do not like Lylat, but to prepare myself for tournaments I practice on Lylat just in case I have to play on it in tournament." Really it's just familiarizing yourself with stages that way there is nothing unexpected or new to you when you fight a decent player on that stage in a tournament, it can really throw off your game and it's how I lost TGC 6 vs a Luigi so I know from experience (The commentators mention True being salty in my match vs Bam, just a heads up, too bad they did not know that the Lucas they were commentating for is the one who eliminated him
).
My last match was a rematch with Bam in Grand Finals. I was pumped and raring to go, playing stream did not bother me but it was after the match or second match I jerked my head around me to see if anyone was watching so I guess I was kinda of worried, but not really to be frank. Anyone before our first match they gave us two separate flat screen tv's with cameras on top of them that looked like the GoPro brand which was SWEEET, I loved that!!! A confidence deterrent was that a fellow smasher said aloud towards Bam that I do not know how to approach so take the fight to me. When the guy said that I looked in his general direction; in retrospect I should not have done that but it's what I did. I did not say nothing to the guy but it did hit me for a couple of seconds until I brushed it off and told myself, if he noticed that habit, then that is something I need to really work on and reminded myself at the beginning of the match so I could work on curing that habit and improve my play. What started off as a comment I initially perceived as negative transformed into a surge of energy and confidence.
Right off the bat I ban Smashville and Town and City, I will not go there nor call it "Starterville" since I find them to be my worst stages, since the platforms usually work against me but what I really despise about those stages is how many times I rolled off the edge during pk thunder, *grumble* *grumble*. Our first match was on Battlefield and I feel that I did pretty well until I self destructed. The reason behind that self-destruct is that I believed I did pk thunder correctly and would be launched in the right direction to snap the ledge, but near the end I got a stage bounce which I did not expect. In other words I reacted after what I saw and not immediately (I have been practicing that now so I can always be ready for the unexpected bounces). Last stock was a huge percent deficit on my end and I just got really cocky fishing for the kill and threw the game.
Second match I counter-pick to Duck Hunt since I love the stage playing as Lucas for the wide flat area that I find great for landing my jab locks when the dog is not interrupting me. plus the flat sides to aid in my recovery which final destination does not provide well for Mother enthusiasts (I should really consider using Omega Wily's Castle). At the very beginning of this match is a special suprise that caught me by suprise (I WILL USE THIS MORE OFTEN!!). Besides that I really have nothing to say for the second match, but in the end I managed to pull through.
For the third match I was really feeling myself after I got 3 down throws into up airs and a bair reset. I racked up percent pretty fast and I got that mix up first hand from a player in the Lucas discord who always did that to me on multiple stages in our Wi-FI sets (Lylat Cruise included). I noticed he (the Lucas Player) opted for a more reliable way to tack on damage while I honing my footstool combos and noticed that he got more damage on me than I did with what seemed like required a lot less commitment to accomplish. Also in my first set vs Bam I was unable to land my footstools on him even though I grabbed him many times at low percent and followed his DI correctly. I had a really bad habit of doing a neutral get up from the ledge since I was not getting hard punished by it and I felt that the pummels and throws as a punish did not pose a threat to me at the time, just a minor annoyance.
Match: (Disregard the disrespectful commentators) (The youtube comments are a nice read though for some) -
.
I've been watching my stream matches a lot over the time since I competed at Smash Fight Club and I really could not find a moment where I performed exceptionally well. I've been at it replaying moments where I did stuff wrong and constantly pausing to see what moves I should not use when I get punished, my rolling habits, etc. I also asked the Lucas Discord for help with the match so I'll just jot down here the collected observation from me and the Discord Group.
Notes I have collectlively gathered for my set:
- Do not play on Battlefield like it is Final Destination; make use of the platforms
- Learn to punish Gravitational Pull
- Watch my percent and mix up my ledge options, getting pummled and thrown off stage is what brought the Rosalina player back in the game
- DO NOT challenge Rosalina when she is above me while I land, fair never lands and I always ate an f or and up smash; instead do my best to drift towards safety
- Break the habit of air dodging low to the stage
- Go in on Rosalina and do not play as a zoner all game; utilize short hop fast fall fairs as an approach when appropiate
- Do my best not to lean on magnet hands when a smash attack is charged in my face XD
Any other advice or habits you guys notice would be appreciated. If this is not the right thread for feedback, I will cover my own back and post the video in the Lucas video thread.
I had a blast at Smash Fight Club and I hope my results post proves insightful to aspiring Lucas players.
P.S: I do not feel like messing up the section where I typed about fighting Trueshot's Mario so I will add it here. I find it great to use PSI magnet as a mix-up for approaches while also defeating his fireball game in the process. I really love using b-reverse PSI magnets in neutral but then I only used it in matches vs projectile users. After some practice I am starting to incorporate it into more match-ups regardless if they have a projectile or not. It's better to strike some fear into your opponent instead of leaving an option unused, no matter how useless it may appear to you.