IMPROVEMENT IS NOT LINEAR!!! I’m yelling to convince myself. This week was so rough and easily contained my most salty smash moments EVER. The salt was a product of my mentality choice, and I think that’s good. I have drive. I know what I want and I’m willing to work towards it. So with all that said, let us move on to “Who fucked up ICYoyo/Bernard/Lamar this week?”
CSU! The first week of CSU being back. I went with my girlfriend’s brothers. Giden (someone I’ve mentioned before), and Quatic, the youngest brother. It was a fun tourney. We had a lot of new people show up who were students at the College. A lot of explaining to the new people how to do things we all take for granted in our community like names, controls, and the like. It was also stacked in terms of talent. Chronos, number one in the state, let alone our city, was there. Robber, the Young Link who’s top 10 in the state. Acid, who I’ve talked about a lot. Yeex, a Falco I lost to months ago who was from Denver but moved down here for College. Puppy, someone currently destroying me and the winner of last week’s Namki’s. A bunch of heavy hitters. So there are no delusions of top 3 for myself going in, but I was hoping to beat a few of the non-state ranked players.
My first match was Skibum. He went Bowser Jr. and I won 2-0. I don’t recall much. He’s a nice guy and I hope he keeps coming around.
Next was Giden. My training partner and my girlfriend’s brother. I love Ethan and have been super happy with how good he’s been getting. I was worried to fight him because in our friendlies he can randomly turn up and destroy me. We never played before in tourney so I was predicting him to do really well. I also do horrible against Captain Falcon usually. In the first game, I got wrecked. I got like 20% and then died first stock. I then got stage spiked by an up b I missed the tech on. I got a stock with a back throw, but then got caught by an upsmash to lose game 1. Game 2 was way closer. I pulled off a sick little double tech to make up for the missed tech in the first game. It was really even but in the end, I teleported to center stage and got upsmashed, losing 2-0 to Giden.
What to do better against Giden? I think if I meet his aggression, I can win. We played some friendlies a few days ago and I literally beat him with all my characters and then some. I need to not be nervous, have confidence, and play solid. I can win, I just need to be ready mentally.
Here’s the set: ICYoyo(Palutena) Vs Giden(Captain Falcon) – Winners Round 3 – CSU Tuesday 1
I then played against a newer player who used double joy-cons. I forget the set but I won 2-0.
The next guy I fought was a decent Mario whose tag was tinklebinkle… Interesting tag. He had a bit of an entourage cheering for him. From what I recall, he was good. He seemed like a newer player who knew his basics but hadn’t played much in tourney. I won 2-0 and pretty solidly last game. I was playing on fire because I was salty and it really helped me here.
Puppy was next. Oh Puppy… Puppy has been on a roll lately. Playing Kirby and winning a local isn’t easy. I decided after playing him last week, that I should camp him out. Kirby theoretically can’t do anything against camping and I’m not above camping. A win is a win. So game 1 went to 5 seconds on the clocks and I won. I just kept running away with the lead and it worked. He would start approaching stupidly and I’d punish him for it. The next match was about the same except I started to get restless. I was throwing out smash attacks like an idiot. These moments of restlessness were enough for Puppy to bring it all the way back and take game 2. Game 3 I was tilted and had none of the patience from game 1. I lost 2-1. I liked the idea but I need to work on keeping it up. Also apparently, the clock was set to 8 minutes, so next time I fight Puppy, I gotta check that clock.
I got 9th!!! One of my worst in-city performances ever here in Fort Collins. That is straight horrible for me. I’m usually no lower than 5th and have only not gotten top 8 in Fort Collins like 3 times. It’s alright though. I was fueled up from saltiness afterward and it help me analyze my play. I learned something that day. I need to work on my base game plan. I’ve been focusing too much on my opponents recently and it’s harming my own game plan. It had me playing more defensively when a big part of my success in Fort Collins is my higher actions per minute (APM) than most of the players here. While that’s not going to work against some top-level threats obviously, it’s important not only to beat these lower-level players but also to conserve energy to then fight the higher-level players. And this helped me going into Games Ahoy the day after.
Here’s the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/tuesday-tourney-csu-1/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/990277/1563785/
3rd seed at ol’ Games Ahoy. Wonder who will upset me this week? I did get upset but this tourney was not nearly as bad as recent ones.
I feel horrible but I don’t remember my first round at all. His tag was Grape and I won 2-0. Sorry Grape.
My next opponent was DJ. He’s a Melee player who also played Ultimate. I remember him from back in the day. He played Falcon and oh boy, after losing to Giden, I was ready for some Falcon. I overwhelmed him and won 2-0. I got a few of those cheeky soft spikes by trading Palu nair with Falcon upB. So satisfying.
Next was Acid. Acid has been a consistent problem for me since I started this blog. This was probably the best I’ve done against this Greninja terror. Acid isn’t really on my list to beat but I think he’s one of the state-ranked players I have the best chance to take out. I got Acid down to last stock last hit game 1. I was planning on bringing out my Bayonetta if I lost, but I really did well with Palutena. Why Bayonetta? Well, I went really close with his Greninja in some friendlies last week with my Bayonetta. I’ve also been playing a ton of Bayonetta. Bayo has a way better out of shield game than Palutena. She has a better punish game in many scenarios, and witch time against Greninja is great. Acid’s Greninja, in particular, is dash attack heavy. I figure witch time can help either get some kills or deter the constant pressure. I didn’t switch though, stayed Palu and lost 2-0. I did alright in game 2, not as well as game 1, but still one of my best performances against Acid aside from the one time I beat him when he was visiting in 2019.
I waited at loser’s quarters and Namki made it from losers round 1 all the way to quarters… Impressive honestly. Namki has a weird assortment of characters. He’s usually a villager player but this time I got the Isabell. I believe he went Isabell against me last week too. I beat the Isabell, but it was closer. He’s getting closer and closer and I am a bit worried about the future of our matches. In game 2 he went Piranha Plant. Plant is a weird one. He’s not got many tools outside some tricks with down b and Patootie, the neutral b. I beat the plant as well winning the set 2-0.
Next was Ninjy. Ninjy was a top 10 player when I first showed up to Fort Collins. He use to play Mario and Donkey Kong. He took a few off me back then but I had the majority. He moved away to Texas but then came back during the pandemic. I have played Ninjy once since then. He picked up Pyra/Mythra and while I won that first time, I wasn’t as lucky this time. Up until now, I had beaten all the Pyra/Mythras I’ve played. This time, I was challenged. The Mythra would win the neutral and the Pyra would finish the job. I lost 2-0. I got down air 2 framed game 2 for my second stock. Despite that, I made the game close but ended up dashing into the end of a Flame Nova(neutral b). That hurt. I think that match-up is hard. Ninjy has a better grasp on the characters now and I’m getting the real experience. I think I should focus on gimping them more. Palu has easy tools for it, but I never attempted it. It wasn’t a wash, I wasn’t playing bad. I made a few mistakes. It’s a totally possible match-up and I will do better next time.
Out at 4th. One away from my seed. That’s alright though. I was angry about my placement, but I knew I wasn’t playing that bad and I can see myself improving from the day before for sure.
Here’s the Bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/foco-weekly-wednesday-197/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1002497/1582001/
Next week I will be attending Namki’s and ESF in Denver. I’m trying to keep it to those two tourneys later in the week because of my money situation. I hope I do better. It’s been a while since I went to Denver and I’m ready to compete there again. It’s also the last Namki’s of the season. I’m interested in seeing how I do. Thanks for reading. I love doing this. ❤
Bernard Lamar Rice 