Hot off the trails of my return to Buffalo, I had my mother in town here in Fort Collins. Because of that, I only made it to one weekly. The Denver weekly, BOW. I went to a weekly in Buffalo the week before and it was about what I’d expect. I did take a set vs a pre-Covid PR player, a friend of mine in fact. It was 2-1 me and he went Ike, opposed to his old main of Bowser. I never did well vs his bowser so I was pretty happy with seeing the Ike upon starting the set. It’s funny, The number one player in Buffalo currently, had picked Ike against me in friendlies right before the bracket. He doesn’t main Ike, he just uses him for fun and he utterly destroyed me. It was rough. He was playing on fire and did win the whole thing so that made sense but I felt like I hadn’t been playing bad, but he just made me feel utterly outmatched. So when it comes to facing an Ike in the bracket, (presumably maining Ike now, I should ask) I was worried but I did win. Right after that, which was on stream, I played again on stream vs number 2 in Buffalo, Kaba. He wasn’t around when I lived there but oh boy, the kid is sick. I played him in the last Buffalo weekly before COVID. I luckily timed one of my last visits to Buffalo with the start of the pandemic and caught the last weekly before it was shut down. I entered because I wanted to see my friends but it was right after I decided to stop going to tournaments. He beat me so bad it ended up on YeetSmash. I’m not kidding… This time was slightly better. Barley, but I felt better about it. Kaba has a way of breaking your defense. He went Falcon against me and unlike Giden (my training partner who also mains Falcon), he was patient. He waited for me to do anything and then he would use Falcon’s incredible dash speed to run in and whiff punish me. It just taught me how dangerous throwing out moves is. I took one stock in the first game with a tech read on a platform with Palu upsmash, but he demolished me in every other interaction. His aggression is so smart and precise. Something I’m taking away from that set is that against bait punishers, I shouldn’t throw out moves, obviously. Picking my moments is incredibly important. I didn’t watch our set until after the BOW Denver weekly, but since watching it, I’m trying to use my movement more. I feel like I was trying to throw out moves while staying relatively still trying to intercept people coming at me, but moving around, especially with Palutena will help me avoid their moves and whiff punish myself. I also have Palu nair, which is an amazing move to threaten with. It hits everything. So if I’m moving around, defensively or aggressively, I can easily throw in a nair to catch them jumping into me. This can’t be a crutch, because many moves will out space Palu nair, but if I use it smart and before their moves can come out, it’ll help me a ton with pressure.
So BOW. This was horrible. I went 1-2. Denver is tough for me. I got 9th at a 100+ local my first time in Denver and have never done great since. This BOW, I went against a Link round 1. It was pretty good. I won 2-0. He had some good tricks. Bomb recoveries were on point and reverse up b’s after the techs. I kinda knew all that was coming but I was surprised I did so good vs a technical character like Link. I usually struggle, but I did great. He didn’t have great pressure, and that’s probably why I won, but other than that, solid Link. My next opponent was Yeex. I remember his name from back before COVID. I’m not sure if he was PR or not, but he did well this tourney. He went Falco game 1 and I kinda was worried about this match-up. From what I remember, I took the first stock, but he kinda kicked it into gear after that. I think where I failed was not running with the lead. He went right in and over pressured me after losing his first stock, and if I hadn’t hidden in the corner in shield I could have just run in and naired him. He wasn’t playing defensive, he wanted the kill, and he wasn’t exactly playing patient. If I run into that kind of player again, I’ll remember to meet their aggression, I have less to lose. He won game 1 and switched to Wolf. The same thing happened. I took first stocks and then he ran over me. He was a typical wolf. I could have again, met his over-aggression with aggression. Wolf is a weird match-up. He’s similar to Palu as a very solid character, but he has a worse disadvantage with the potential to get earlier kills. Palu can outbox him with bair and edge guard the life out of him, so that is something I will focus on next time. My next opponent in loser was A Falco as well. He was a nice guy visiting from Arkansas I believe? Anyways, I don’t remember this set much. He won game 1 with Falco against my Palu, I went panic Steve, took a close game 2, and then he won game 3. I remember being behind in game 3 and almost getting a steve comeback, but it wasn’t meant to be.
In summary, things to work on. Against bait punishers, play with movement more, and don’t swing first unless I know I can get a hit. Against Wolf Specifically, out-box him and edge guard him. Try to keep the middle stage and don’t let him get me on the ledge. I hope to implement a few of these this week. There’s a Namki’s house (A Fort Collins Bi-weekly) and another BOW. I think there might even be an ESF. ESF is huge. 100-150 at least pre-pandemic. So we’ll see what I end up going to and how I do.
Bernard Lamar Rice 