Intro of Self:
I'm a second year undergraduate at UCSB, cofounder or UCSB Smash Club which hosts weekly meets for 20-40 people and quarterly tournaments for the community (this year opening up to the public smash community, not UCSB only anymore). I major in Biochemistry, and am taking sufficient classes for a double major in Psychology in the pursuit of studying the intricate chemical systems involved in neuroscience for a Ph.D. in the future.
I've played Melee since 2003 and Brawl since release (not japanese version though sadly).
I'm okay at Melee, and though I touch the game maybe once every couple months I am immediately able to use Sheik to keep up with players like TonyGuacomole or Metalreflectslime in my community, due to careful analysis of my actions during play. In Brawl I main Marth with a burning passion, and have worked with Junk to innovate a unique style I hope to flourish in the tournament scene soon.
My main reason for wanting to be in the Back Room is to help innovate Marth's top level play so that the character may compete beyond the ranks of players like Havok and Mikehaze.
I also enjoy any lively discussion involving matchups, as they are my focus in the game, along with mindset.
1. Are you a tournament host or co-host?
I am the publicity and treasurer, though I end up in the position also of T.O. for UCSB Smash Club. An organization in University of California, Santa Barbara that holds tournaments quarterly for the public starting this year. Last year we held a tournament for UCSB only, and I ran it with two other friends. It went fluidly, with 32 Doubles Brawl teams and 32 Singles Melee people, and finished in under four hours. It included Melee singles and Brawl Doubles. This coming year, all tournaments will most likely be MK banned tournaments held on campus but open and advertised to all on AiB and SWF. Expected attendance is around 80, and expected hours are 1PM to 8PM or so, though advertising will maintain a stance that hours start from 11AM and that is when we will have setups ready.
Our meetings this year will consist of not only randoms, but names such as Junk and Vicegrip, every Saturday night, with expected attendance of about 40 for four hours of fun/metagame discussing.
The area about UCSB is a dead zone. Oxnard is the only place nearby that held tournaments all summer, and it is an hour drive. Thankfully, we're bringing all those underground smashers to the surface at UCSB and also the community.
2. What part of Brawl do you know the most about? Do you specialize in a character, or know of some or all of the cast, or do you instead look into the game's physics? Maybe you prefer researching into the proper mindset and thought processes? Give your answer here.
Throughout the development of Brawl, I have had passions for understanding and developing techniques for Mario, then Falco, then Snake, and then Marth, although I have also taken occasional glances at the uses of characters such as Jigglypuff and Ike. The game's physics is a somewhat background concern, since trends such as platform canceling, foxtrot pivots, and grab releases inspired me to look into optimizing what my characters can do from grabs, and how my characters can position based on circumstance.
JunK got me into looking at these things more in-depth as of late, along with the uses of buffering.
However, my main concern with Brawl has always been mindset. I watch videos of top players and pause every five seconds or so to evaluate circumstances and thoughts of either player. Every Saturday morning in the past summer, though I was in summer school taking 20 units, was spent pouring hours into developing decision-making processes.
This morning, I typed out the following on notepads after the viewing of 4 youtube videos and reading through three match-up discussions:
QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING MATCH
1) What is the best zoning/% combos I have
2) What does he want
- Zones
- % Combos
3BAD) What did he do that worked
3GOOD) What do I do to keep him unsafe till ****%
Some of the rest I will include just to provide sufficient example (how are you to assume I'm not stupid if I don't):
MK - Watch Him
A) His punish to your shield
-grab -> spotdodge
-OoS nair -> shield then punish
-upB -> shield and uptilt to grab
B) His recovery method
-SideB -> downB
-UpB onstage backwards -> shieldgrab
-Jumps -> prepare to keep him on ledge
-DownB -> perfectly timed edgehog
-Tornado onstage -> UpB/DownB/DB
alternatable with tiltupshield
to punish
C) Spacing is inside his spacing, at your tipper
or sideB
1) Keep MK offstage
2) Trick into Grabs/ Fight with Your Shield:
Low %: Fthrow to Nair to Nair-> ?
High %: Release->dashattack/dair
3D) Every Jump is a risk, emptyhop>fair>nair
4) Count his jumps
5) Always keep fighting, 3 grabs may win
6P) Stay low relative to MK
7) Fight using your grounded shield
8) Bait poor spacing
9) Elongate his jumps and dashes in
10) Focus on % exchange per situation
-maximize punishes (don't just DB)
PIKACHU -
1) Jump over/Powershield thunderbolts
-retreating fair shieldachu
-nair aerialachu
2) Use stage Presence and patience
- he can't fight using the edges forever
* one screwup is a deadachu or high%achu
- emptyhop mind****, walkup and sideb/grab
3) Pikachu's FSMASH is his longest range attack
ftilt is next longest
4) Fully shield or STRONG DI Pikachu's dsmash
5) Don't fall for upsmash/fsmash for the kill
6) Watch where they go with Up-B
- behind you close
- front of you close
- behind you far
- ledge
- platform
- through you (up-B is only 2%, do a jab)
7) Jab/SideB/Dtilt can put pressure and Pikachu out of range
- keep pikachu at optimal range
8) Sword beats thunderbolt
9) Counter ***** Fsmash/DownB
-the closer the more % retaliated
10) Stay spaced at Fair tipper range
TOON LINK:
1) His short hop-> fair comes out BEFORE YOURS
- But he loses ground when he whiffs it
2) Stay spaced fair tipper range
3) If under him Watch out for:
- Dair
- Bombs
- Zair landing
4) If over him watch out for
-upair
-upsmash
-nair
5) Patience and ZONING OFF THE STAGE WITHOUT PASS
FOX:
1) Zone in fair and side-B/grab range
2) Being above Fox is NOT THAT BAD, space fair&shield
-upair
-fair
-UPSMASH - watch out for DASHDANCE UPSMASH
3) Do not let Fox on-stage, don't take the ledge
4) Grab out of end of Side-B for a grab break gimp
5) Fair recovery to death
6) Fthrowx2 to Spike is important at 0%
7) Ftilt is deceptively long
8) Up-B stage spike
OVERALL MATCHUP FOCI
1) Recover safely, use anything predictable to get ahead of the opponent
- UpB/Retaliate early on close attacks
- Airdodge and DI in ONLY WHEN AHEAD OF THE OPPONENT
- Land safely with retreating fair
on grounded opponents trying to punish
* Get ahead of the opponent inwards, and use it
or * Recover safely and fight from the ledge
2) Get ahead of the opponent in the neutral situation
cut down their options
-show them that you'll punish them
if they do so and so, then let them make
the first move)
zone them offstage
-walk up when it's safe to, let them
make first moves/"tells"
note when they're trying to get behind you
-**** them for it
3) Base actions on followup actions
Low % = FOLLOWUP CITY
Everything quoted above was written this morning. I'm an analysis junkie. It's why I basically triple major in school as well.
The hour following all that I typed above, I also wrote out on a notepad a critique of a sticky on AiB in the Marth section, which then turned into the following post:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=11371575#post11371575
I intend to flesh that post out to a much larger entirety over the next month of Saturdays or so.
3. How often do you attend tournaments? How familiar are you with your local scene? Your regional scene? The nation?
I have always lived in dead areas where I have brought a smash scene in myself (Lodi = Farmsville, Santa Barbara = Beach, not Smash): making an organization at my school (high school, college). I attended three large tournaments when I was a nobody, and that got me started. This summer I spent carpooling with Vicegrip and JunK, learning to main Snake at about 6 Biweekly Oxnard Tournaments, then switched mains to Marth when during analyses I discovered how little my favored fighting style and Snake's optimum style had in common.
I myself probably know every Smash player in my area that isn't a shut-in. Advertisements and invitations for my smash club have brought in many randoms and I have had followup smash-fests with the best of them. I also got to know mostly everyone that attended Oxnard's Biweeklies this past summer.
My plan this coming school year is to spend some weeks getting ahead of school and subsequent weekends traveling and playing at nationals/regionals. I'm just getting started in terms getting around really.
How is your overall tournament performance? Please link results, if available.
With Snake over the summer (I picked him up at the beginning of summer and used him through it, assuming he was the second best character), I placed 9 and 13 consistently among 25-40 people. The placements above me included Rich Brown, DEHF, and JunK consistently, with others like Mikehaze, Havok, and TearBear stepping in.
I realized by the end of summer Snake was definitely not my style, and have worked on Marth for about 2 months now. I have yet to play a tournament with Marth, but am confident in top 5 consistency given how well I do in friendlies with JunK and Vice as well as several currently decent local players. In doubles I have taken matches (2 of 5 each) off of Junk/Vice and LarryDEHF/RichBrown, two teams that I would consider of equal caliber, while teaming with a teammate I had hardly practiced teams with. I'm also exceptional at low tiers with my Mario, but have not had the opportunity to show that off much either.
5. Reshiram or Zekrom?
Upon quick google, and knowledge only up to Sapphire of the metagame of pokemon (shoddy battle, netbattle)...I would assume Zekrom is better off because of the type combination it has (electric beats water and ice which used to be what would counter dragons). Then again, I haven't the slightest notion of whether water is as overused a type as it was at one point against dragons, and for all I know Steel beats Dragon now. Also, whether they depend on physical or special attacks would make a critical difference. Assuming dragons are physical, I would go with Zekrom. Hmm..I just might want to play Black&White after all.
6. What aspect of the game would you like to see the BBR look into/work on?
The BBR votes still left a Metaknight in competitive Brawl, which is uninteresting for the meta-game, but understandably blamable on Euro-peeps. Also, recent stage sets have made little sense. But I think this only from what I have heard. I'm tired of hearing side-reports about the BBR's doings, and would rather experience it before I judge what it should work on. For all I know I haven't scratched the surface of the on-goings of the BBR, save for the posts that go public through Pierce7D all the time (which I much appreciate).
Posts like "A Norfair Guide for Marth" in the public character chats have inspired me to want to develop strategies that were not only matchup dependent but matchup+stage dependent, under the assumption that players will be willing to stick with a few choice stages for playing certain characters. This I would be willing to start a section in and contribute for a couple weeks per stage for.
7. Finally, if you haven't already, please link to posts of any contributions you have made in the past; what do you feel you would bring to the Brawl Back Room?
Always feeling uninitiated/unregarded by the public (which is too lazy to read walls of thoughtful text), I hardly make posts thus far. In the BBR there would be much better reason to engage in discussion, given the response rate and caliber of discussion in comparison with the non-BBR.
Here are my two most recent attempts at lively discussion. Both have plenty of room to grow, and actually one is being pushed currently by public input.
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=282359&page=2 *Note how I posted last and since then people just gave up
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=288606 *Yay success so far,
Day 1, Input from Mr. R and Susa!!!
Honestly, most of my time is spent working on school. But when I get my mind set on Brawl once a week or so, I usually have a rapid series of input and development. In this, I usually feel uninterested in lack of response from anyone around at a high enough level of play((currently this lack being present in the Marth boards). JunK is often nearby for lively discussion, but even the way he thinks can't often work with my developing ideas.
)
