Now, the lines had been drawn. Game Over had come and gone, the WC were the champions for the moment. Soon everyone was wanting to make their mark as a national tournament host. Not long after GO, the Ship of Fools posted about a tournament in Indiana, and soon interest was abound from all over the country. Lucky me, my uncle lives about 20 minutes from there, so attending MELEE-FC is no issue for me.
It was about this time that SWF crashed for a week or two again and wiped out my old account. I recreated it in February 2004, as it says, and got readmitted to the MBR (it didn't become the SBR until Brawl was announced). I had a hand in some stage bannings (Fourside and Great Bay stand out to me, and Joe was the primary supporter of removing DK Rap from the stages) and some other things. I was never fully in support of the items ban, on principle more than anything, but you can't argue with explosive capsules that you couldn't turn off except for by getting rid of all items. Most stage bans I supported, btw, had to do with excessive camping tactics and none of this "random" crap you see get tossed around all the time. Learn to deal with hazards IMO and you'll be a better player in the long run. I was really sad to see MK2 go, it was one of my favorites.
Twiggy began hosting little fests/tourneys around this time. I went to most, and though he usually seemed to beat me in friendlies I'd more often than not eek out the win in our sets.
Just before FC, there was an announcement about a travelling tournament event called the V-Games, which was supposed to be structured similarly to what MLG became later. It was a circuit event, going to many cities and holding Qualifier events, and the winners were sent to LA for a finale. It was funny to see SWFers coordinating the events they attended (the DA crew went all over the northeast so as many of them could get spots as possible). GAWes came here to win alongside Bobby, who won in Atlanta the week before. In probably some of my hardest matches, I beat Twiggy, Josh, GAWes, lost to Bobby, beat Joel, beat GAWes again, and then had to switch off Sheik to fight Bobby in the grand finals, where I found out that Falcon could just knee his way to victory against Samus. NC Falcon got kicked up another notch. W00t. After that I rarely beat Bobby again after that, lol.
FC came, and it was a total blast. I teamed with Darkrain, and we taught each other lots of cool Falcon tricks. I taught him how to ff nair just right so you could double hit and still get a grab in, and I think the rest concerning Darkrain is history. Bobby was there with Chris aka Gym Falcon, though he wasn't called that at the time, and he played Falco and Jiggs. The Kishes invented the crew battle there, and I was in with the WC giants so I was on Ken's crew. It was Ken, Isai, and two really cool Canadians from GameFAQs, Mike and Jarrod. We'd known of each other from our days at GF. So it was cool to hang out with those guys at FC. It was there that I really gained my appreciation for Isai's playing. You all newer people have seen but a giant's shadow of times past. In the championship match, against the East Coast (DA and H2YL) crew, I got tossed at DA Wes who did quite a number on me and Jarrod and was finally dispatched by Mike. Mike was then dispatched by Oro with one stock left, then all we had was Ken and Isai against Oro's stock, Husband, Wife, DA Dave, and Azen. This is where legends are born. Isai destroyed Oro's Samus in less than 20 seconds, taking only 10%. Next was Husband's Marth, and I'm pretty certain he didn't take a stock from Isai either. He may have. But Isai's Falcon was too good. He plowed through the Newlyweds with considerable ease, and down to 2 stock was faced with his toughest challenge yet: the EC's best Falco. Cruise was quite the blessing, and with a lonely stock remaining Isai set himself against Azen's Marth. He managed to take one and nearly got another before he was taken down, but the damage was done. Isai had taken 11 stock against one of the best assembled crews of the entire East Coast. Ken's 4-2 advantage over Azen was more than sufficient to win us the tournament. But Isai was the hero that day. Later that night hanging out at the Iggy's house was the funniest drive-through experience I've ever had. 2 cars went to Wendy's with orders for a house full of smashers. $40+ was the size of the order in the first car. Our car piled an additional $65 on top of that. All told, nearly $110 of food from Wendy's ended up on Iggy's kitchen counter. It was utter pandemonium and hilarity.
The fall passed somewhat uneventfully for me, though not in terms of quantity. October saw the arrival of Munkey and Adams and the rest of their crew. Many more smashfests at Twiggy's house. We got some Mississippi people to come up once, along with Mike G. at about this time. So I finally met the best Peach I've ever played. I also met MookieRah then, and Moogle the SSB prodigy. Mike told us we needed to go to Smash Aid 4 that December, a year after the first one and I hadn't been to the ones in between. So again Bobby and I (with Gym this time) piled into the Cougar and headed down I-85 to that awesome old school and those cool people. We picked up Mike G on the way, and somehow we got onto the subject of Bobby leaving the next week for a vacation in Australia. He'd been chatting with some smashers down there, and they were ecstatic to meet a real American smasher. Their prodigy Emily (Kupo) and I began talking online a lot after that. But we had a blast again at SA IV, and plans were quickly underway for a 5th. This was the time we had a NC FL crew battle with our friends from Gainesboro, and somehow pulled out the win. Go NC.
Somewhere in here I met Karn and Malk and (which one was with you guys, was it THO or Knorr?) and hung out with them at NC State with Bobby some. It was hard not actually living in Raleigh when all your friends do.
Pretty soon, through all the chatting with Emily and talking with Wes about SAV, I decided to convince them all to arrange their plans to coincide with one another. So that May (2005), Em came to Raleigh and hung out with Bobby and me (I took the week off work) and then over the weekend we all drove down to Atlanta and had a tournament basically just for her. She did well. She got 3rd IIRC, and won teams I think with Mike G, against the Newlyweds, who were a dominant EC force at the time. Around this point was the beginning of the FL debacles, with the Miami people thinking they were hot stuff and no one liking them. So Husband was all high and mighty about beating the FL people, not aware that these weren't the same FL people buy my friends from Gainesville. Things went pretty rough for the guys from MD, though they barely eeked out wins, they were very close matches. This was just about the end for my FL friends, sadly. They were a little older than I, and schooling will call. But altogether, apart from the sheer magnitude of the events of the FC tournament series, this was the funnest week I had playing Smash ever. I still talk to Em a bit.
My interest in the game was beginning to wane, but I still had one last shindig to make it to. A month after SAV, I took the bus to Baltimore to hang out with the Newlyweds and attend Gettin' Schooled 2. I saw Ken, Isai, JV, Eddie, Wes (who I managed to take a match off in the tournament!!!), Azen, Chu, and all the super cool Texas people. It was a good time. I did quite well in the swiss format. I almost made the top 32, I was pretty proud of myself. Look up the montage from Bach on youtube, it's a pretty good representation of the fun we had there.
This is nearly the end of my tale. Just before SAV I met the girl I'd begin dating at the end of that summer, who I've been with now for nearly 3 1/2 years, and going to tourneys for money just wasn't as feasible to me as it had been before (it never really was much in the first place, but I love hanging out with people). I more or less dropped out from everything almost entirely. I don't remember if I made Smash Aid 7, I don't think I did. I would still hang out with people from time to time, like Twiggy and Adams and such, but I didn't do much until I met L0Zr in March of '06, and even that was a one time thing. The beginning of the new era, the death of the old. It wasn't until last year (almost 2 now) that I started hanging out with Ali, when I decided to go to FCD (which was a blast) and see all the people again. Shortly after that I went to Smash Aid X, to see Wes off to England, and saw Adam again and decided to get back into the local scene, coming up to Raleigh again or just smashing like old times. You all know where you came into the story, but this is my part of it. So there, I hope you all enjoyed reading this, I certainly enjoyed writing it all.
It was about this time that SWF crashed for a week or two again and wiped out my old account. I recreated it in February 2004, as it says, and got readmitted to the MBR (it didn't become the SBR until Brawl was announced). I had a hand in some stage bannings (Fourside and Great Bay stand out to me, and Joe was the primary supporter of removing DK Rap from the stages) and some other things. I was never fully in support of the items ban, on principle more than anything, but you can't argue with explosive capsules that you couldn't turn off except for by getting rid of all items. Most stage bans I supported, btw, had to do with excessive camping tactics and none of this "random" crap you see get tossed around all the time. Learn to deal with hazards IMO and you'll be a better player in the long run. I was really sad to see MK2 go, it was one of my favorites.
Twiggy began hosting little fests/tourneys around this time. I went to most, and though he usually seemed to beat me in friendlies I'd more often than not eek out the win in our sets.
Just before FC, there was an announcement about a travelling tournament event called the V-Games, which was supposed to be structured similarly to what MLG became later. It was a circuit event, going to many cities and holding Qualifier events, and the winners were sent to LA for a finale. It was funny to see SWFers coordinating the events they attended (the DA crew went all over the northeast so as many of them could get spots as possible). GAWes came here to win alongside Bobby, who won in Atlanta the week before. In probably some of my hardest matches, I beat Twiggy, Josh, GAWes, lost to Bobby, beat Joel, beat GAWes again, and then had to switch off Sheik to fight Bobby in the grand finals, where I found out that Falcon could just knee his way to victory against Samus. NC Falcon got kicked up another notch. W00t. After that I rarely beat Bobby again after that, lol.
FC came, and it was a total blast. I teamed with Darkrain, and we taught each other lots of cool Falcon tricks. I taught him how to ff nair just right so you could double hit and still get a grab in, and I think the rest concerning Darkrain is history. Bobby was there with Chris aka Gym Falcon, though he wasn't called that at the time, and he played Falco and Jiggs. The Kishes invented the crew battle there, and I was in with the WC giants so I was on Ken's crew. It was Ken, Isai, and two really cool Canadians from GameFAQs, Mike and Jarrod. We'd known of each other from our days at GF. So it was cool to hang out with those guys at FC. It was there that I really gained my appreciation for Isai's playing. You all newer people have seen but a giant's shadow of times past. In the championship match, against the East Coast (DA and H2YL) crew, I got tossed at DA Wes who did quite a number on me and Jarrod and was finally dispatched by Mike. Mike was then dispatched by Oro with one stock left, then all we had was Ken and Isai against Oro's stock, Husband, Wife, DA Dave, and Azen. This is where legends are born. Isai destroyed Oro's Samus in less than 20 seconds, taking only 10%. Next was Husband's Marth, and I'm pretty certain he didn't take a stock from Isai either. He may have. But Isai's Falcon was too good. He plowed through the Newlyweds with considerable ease, and down to 2 stock was faced with his toughest challenge yet: the EC's best Falco. Cruise was quite the blessing, and with a lonely stock remaining Isai set himself against Azen's Marth. He managed to take one and nearly got another before he was taken down, but the damage was done. Isai had taken 11 stock against one of the best assembled crews of the entire East Coast. Ken's 4-2 advantage over Azen was more than sufficient to win us the tournament. But Isai was the hero that day. Later that night hanging out at the Iggy's house was the funniest drive-through experience I've ever had. 2 cars went to Wendy's with orders for a house full of smashers. $40+ was the size of the order in the first car. Our car piled an additional $65 on top of that. All told, nearly $110 of food from Wendy's ended up on Iggy's kitchen counter. It was utter pandemonium and hilarity.
The fall passed somewhat uneventfully for me, though not in terms of quantity. October saw the arrival of Munkey and Adams and the rest of their crew. Many more smashfests at Twiggy's house. We got some Mississippi people to come up once, along with Mike G. at about this time. So I finally met the best Peach I've ever played. I also met MookieRah then, and Moogle the SSB prodigy. Mike told us we needed to go to Smash Aid 4 that December, a year after the first one and I hadn't been to the ones in between. So again Bobby and I (with Gym this time) piled into the Cougar and headed down I-85 to that awesome old school and those cool people. We picked up Mike G on the way, and somehow we got onto the subject of Bobby leaving the next week for a vacation in Australia. He'd been chatting with some smashers down there, and they were ecstatic to meet a real American smasher. Their prodigy Emily (Kupo) and I began talking online a lot after that. But we had a blast again at SA IV, and plans were quickly underway for a 5th. This was the time we had a NC FL crew battle with our friends from Gainesboro, and somehow pulled out the win. Go NC.
Somewhere in here I met Karn and Malk and (which one was with you guys, was it THO or Knorr?) and hung out with them at NC State with Bobby some. It was hard not actually living in Raleigh when all your friends do.
Pretty soon, through all the chatting with Emily and talking with Wes about SAV, I decided to convince them all to arrange their plans to coincide with one another. So that May (2005), Em came to Raleigh and hung out with Bobby and me (I took the week off work) and then over the weekend we all drove down to Atlanta and had a tournament basically just for her. She did well. She got 3rd IIRC, and won teams I think with Mike G, against the Newlyweds, who were a dominant EC force at the time. Around this point was the beginning of the FL debacles, with the Miami people thinking they were hot stuff and no one liking them. So Husband was all high and mighty about beating the FL people, not aware that these weren't the same FL people buy my friends from Gainesville. Things went pretty rough for the guys from MD, though they barely eeked out wins, they were very close matches. This was just about the end for my FL friends, sadly. They were a little older than I, and schooling will call. But altogether, apart from the sheer magnitude of the events of the FC tournament series, this was the funnest week I had playing Smash ever. I still talk to Em a bit.
My interest in the game was beginning to wane, but I still had one last shindig to make it to. A month after SAV, I took the bus to Baltimore to hang out with the Newlyweds and attend Gettin' Schooled 2. I saw Ken, Isai, JV, Eddie, Wes (who I managed to take a match off in the tournament!!!), Azen, Chu, and all the super cool Texas people. It was a good time. I did quite well in the swiss format. I almost made the top 32, I was pretty proud of myself. Look up the montage from Bach on youtube, it's a pretty good representation of the fun we had there.
This is nearly the end of my tale. Just before SAV I met the girl I'd begin dating at the end of that summer, who I've been with now for nearly 3 1/2 years, and going to tourneys for money just wasn't as feasible to me as it had been before (it never really was much in the first place, but I love hanging out with people). I more or less dropped out from everything almost entirely. I don't remember if I made Smash Aid 7, I don't think I did. I would still hang out with people from time to time, like Twiggy and Adams and such, but I didn't do much until I met L0Zr in March of '06, and even that was a one time thing. The beginning of the new era, the death of the old. It wasn't until last year (almost 2 now) that I started hanging out with Ali, when I decided to go to FCD (which was a blast) and see all the people again. Shortly after that I went to Smash Aid X, to see Wes off to England, and saw Adam again and decided to get back into the local scene, coming up to Raleigh again or just smashing like old times. You all know where you came into the story, but this is my part of it. So there, I hope you all enjoyed reading this, I certainly enjoyed writing it all.
