What a week. All Denver tournaments. I went to a new one. It was at a neat little hippy cafe/bar in downtown Denver. To get away from tournament performance for a bit, I loved this tournament because it was the first Denver tournament where I felt like I could meet the players more. I’ve gone to a fair amount of tournaments in Denver but they always felt unapproachable. At this tournament, I felt more comfortable. The vibe was much more chill and because of that, I met some cool new people. This is huge for me because I love the community. This snowballed into helping me feel more comfortable at BOW later in the week and now it really feels like I know a lot of the people in the state. So, on to the tournament itself.
The first match was on stream and versus an IRL Ryu who played Ryu. This man was intense. He seemed like a spiritual warrior. I camped him out with Palu but he took me to last stock both matches. The shotos/fighting game characters are becoming easier for me to handle when they’re around my level. They can’t catch Palu. Reflect plus my own projectiles keep them away. They also get comboed to hell. It was a 2-0, moving on to something really interesting.
Round 2, Shade. A really good falcon. Apparently, he was PR back at the start of Ultimate. Our first match lasted like a minute. He SDed and then ended me all 3 stocks so fast. I was shocked. He played very committal to high reward reads on my disadvantage and I just got blown up 3 times in a row. Game 2 was much better for me. I adapted perfectly. I started camping mid-stage, catching all his approaches. This match was going so much in my favor and then he takes my second stock while at like 100 on his last. He hits me with a landing upair I think, I am terrified and panic air dodge in the upair string. That was a mistake and I get kneed at like 50 and die. That game should have been mine but it’s a good example of why not to panic. So I lost 2-0 but I felt good because the only thing I needed to change after the changes made within the set is not panicking.
My next match was versus one of my new favorite people in Colorado. This guy is named Willy Wikerson. We’re both black, loud, East coast transplants. He is from Baltimore and I of course hail from the chicken wing land of Buffalo. The Dude is funny. His PT was alright, but I kinda had a great PT practice partner who recently left us. RIP Chop. He’ll respawn back in Colorado soon. Luckily he got a job here. But Willy was not on his level so I kinda had that set in the bag. 2-0.
Next was a Fort Collins native, 1trunoob. I’ve played Noob a lot. I’ve never lost a set vs Noob in tournament, but online recently, I was getting destroyed. Noob plays Zelda, and Zelda is stupidly good online so I kinda figured that’s the reason I was losing but I didn’t want to assume that would mean offline would be in my favor, so I didn’t let my guard down. I did end up winning 2-0, but Noob is getting there. It was easily our closet set so far and if Noob keeps it up he’ll get the “W” one day.
Next was vs Acid for 7th. Acid was someone I played a lot with last week. 2 times at Namki’s. So I was trying to figure out this match-up hard. I’m still not there. No Kazuya this time. All frog. Sadly, because this tourney was on Monday, I don’t recall a lot of it. I think I did a bit better, but I still need to work on it. I think camping middle is important and what I really need to focus on is punishing Greninja out of shield. Thinking about it now, I might want to go Pit. Pit down smash, pit dair. These might really help. Acid and a lot of Greninjas don’t grab much and Acid always hits shield a ton in succession. I think having Pit down smash as a good, strong get-off me tool might help the pressure. I’ll pick Pit in a desperate situation next time. Palu should be able to do this, but obviously, I’m not doing this right atm. 2-0 Acid, and I get out at 9th. Not bad for Denver. Best I’ve done there in ages.
Next was ye ol’ BOW. We started the day by having a lovely brunch with some excellent humans from Boulder. It was a great way to start a tournament day and I wonder if it correlated with my performance.
First match was against Ol’ Willy form earlier in the week. That was kinda toxic. Went the same as earlier in the week. 2-0 to Ol’ Yoyo.
Next was against Rydra. A fucking Ridley. I’ve heard of this guy for ages but I finally met him and played him this tourney. I lost 2-0 but I think that matchup is easily doable with more knowledge. I took him to last stock each game and I think consistent pressure from Palu is just overwhelming for Ridley. I think if I approach the match-up next time with that mentality, I can do it. He’s also a top 10 player in the state with fucking Ridley so I could be totally wrong, but I’ll find out.
After that was a very unique set. Alright, who the fuck in Denver is using the “y” tag? Fuck you. That’s mine. My next opponent was a Falcon on Smash box. In the first game, I noticed my controls were fucked after he took the first stock. I mentioned it and he said we could restart. After the game was ended I decided I would feel like a scum fuck if I won after that so I said: “I don’t feel comfortable resetting, you win game 1, we’ll play from there.” I can’t do that to someone. I would feel horrible. So we started game 2, and I won really solid. I feel like my match vs Shade really helped me vs Falcon. I camped mid-stage and just really dominated the match. Same with game 2. 2-1 win even with a weird game 1.
Next, I played SJW. A damn good Inkling. I hate Palu Inkling. My first months here in Fort Collins that was my hardest counter. Still struggle with it apparently because I got 2 stocked I believe. I then thought “WTF can Inkling even do to Steve?” and I was proven right. I just camped a bit, did some mine carting. I took game 2 pretty close and game 3 was really close. SJW went Mario and that was better, but I still took it last hit last stock.
Next was one of my least favorite sets I’ve ever played. I had to play Mech, another Palutena. He really had my number. He played much more patient and my offense was not good enough. Every game was close. In fact, the least close game was game 2 but he SD’ed. I’ll take it though. Game 3 was razor-thin and was last stock last hit. I got killed by a really late bair which was really good. I hate losing the Palu ditto. It’s definitely a shitty pride thing. I feel like I need to level up. My movement isn’t up to snuff to play Palu at her peak, so I’m working on this. What really ticked me off is that Mech didn’t know how to downthrow Bair… That ticked me off. I feel like I shoulda had that.
That last match was rough but I went 3-2 and got 17th at BOW. I think I’ve only ever gone 1-2 at BOW. 17th ain’t bad too. This was a good smash week. I’m liking this experiment. I think writing down my experiences helps them stick and I think I am getting better. I hope anyone who reads this likes it too. Love Smash and the community. Next week we have a Foco weekly. I also will be going to IPA again. That tournament was chill. I might skip BOW but I also might not. I need to make money this week so I might Doordash Saturday, the day of BOW.
Bernard Lamar Rice 