Progress isn’t linear… BUT HOT DAMN DID I DO GOOD THIS WEEK! I outplaced my seed at a tournament, got an upset, beat a recent bracket demon, and finally made my seed while seeded highly. It was all positive this week in terms of my results and I only lost to 2 players. I also have a new thing brewing. It’s the legend of the Yoyo Dark Pit.
The first tourney of the week was CSU, as it has been recently. I was seeded 6th. Everyone from Fort Collins was there except for Chronos and I guess Pink Menace. Pink hasn’t been around recently, but he did show up to Games Ahoy last week, so he’s a wild card. It was pretty stacked and I wasn’t expecting to get above my seed.
My first match was against a Mario main with the tag Sendjamin. He played really solid. I took game 1 but it was close. Game 2, he zero to deaths me on my second stock but sd’s in the process leaving us both with 1 stock apiece. I ended up winning that game and I won the set 2-0. He had the combo’s on lock, he just needs to play neutral better.
Well, that match went straight into Yeex. Yeex is a damn good Wolf/Falco and he decided to go Wolf against me that day. I lost the first match. Yeex is very good at pressuring and playing footsies. He wouldn’t let me hit him with a dash attack or dash grab. Going into game 2, I knew what I needed to fix, but I wasn’t confident in being able to execute what I needed to do. I brought him down to last stock. I took his second stock rather impressively with a back air to intercept his side b to the ledge. He then hit me once and really didn’t let me get back to neutral. I lost 0-2. I did improve in the second match, not swinging on his obvious baits, but he still got way more mileage from a hit. I need to work on that myself. Palutena theoretically can do the same thing, if not better. It’s something I’m going to work on improving.
So, my first match in losers was LooneyBassoonie. He was a Link player who switched to Young Link game 2. Aside from getting hit by his self-proclaimed “Signature Pro Gamer Move”, I did rather well. He said that while we were playing during our set. Little tournament etiquette note. Don’t have a conversation with your opponent while you play. Especially if you really don’t know them. Signature… PRO GAMER MOVE… He was serious. Alright. 2-0 for me, onto top 8.
Oh boy, this next one was something I was dreading but also excited for. RoboCop, the Chrom, was my next opponent. As I wrote last week, I’ve lost 3 times in a row to him. His Chrom gives my Palutena a hell of a problem. As I said last week, I was going to try Pit. Well, it worked. I won the first game in a solid fashion and opened up game 2 with a zero to death that was really clean. Robo brought it back to a last stock scenario, but I ended it with a well-timed F-Smash to trade with his high up B. I took the set 2-0, beat RoboCop for the first time since the pandemic, and ended his 3-0 streak on me. I was happy about that one.
Next was Puppy, the Kirby. Puppy has had a streak on me as well, but Puppy has been considered better than me for a while now. While he is definitely in my sights for someone to overcome, I don’t expect to beat Puppy, and nobody would seed me above Puppy. That’s why losing to RoboCop, someone who is definitely good, but not better than me in if we were to have rankings, was disappointing to me. I lost to Robo last week Twice and tied with or outplaced him still. People like Puppy though are above me and therefore, I consider a loss to them not as bad and a win to be much more valuable. So, game 1, I go Palutena. It’s the normal song and dance. Puppy wins rather solid. Game 2 I stay Palutena. Puppy is winning for a majority of the game but I slowly bring it back and eventually find a down air on his air dodge to the ledge, winning game 2. So, going into game 3, I’m thinking… I actually have a chance to get an upset here. I kinda hate Palutena Kiby because Kirby is too short. I need to get lucky or really outplay Kirby to win that match-up. A thought came to me. I had been using a certain fallen angel a lot recently and just used his original to defeat RoboCop. I picked Dark Pit. If you read last week’s post, you’ll know that I used Dark Pit against Scorch, the Inkling. I decided to do that because I thought Dark Pit versus Inkling would be easier than going Palu and I was also just hot off losing to Robo and making rash decisions. This is Puppy though. He’s going to be ranked high, and normally I wouldn’t pull out a secondary I wasn’t sure of against someone like him, but Dark Pit was calling, and who am I to ignore him. Initially, it seems like a bad pick. Puppy 0-100’s me pretty much. I quickly strike back but Puppy maintains a pretty solid lead. I remember taking his second stock by footstooling him off stage and then hitting him with a down air that didn’t spike but did stage spike. It comes down to last stock and Puppy has the lead, but can’t find the kill. I hit him off stage, footstool him again, go for a down air follow up and this time it did spike, and I win. 2-1 over Puppy. An upset!!! Finally!!! I did it gamers.
I had to fight Yeex again for 3rd. It was best of 5 and went worse than winners. Yeex made the clean 3-0. I couldn’t keep up. I need to work on my own footsies and pressure. Yeex plays like nobody else here in Fort Collins and it really throws me off. I need to really improve my fundamentals to stand a chance and I plan to work on it as I said earlier.
I got 4th!!! I got a place higher than my seed and I’m happy about it. I’m happy I was able to get an upset and I’m glad I broke a losing streak against RoboCop. It was a good tourney for me and I hope I can keep it up.
Here’s the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/tuesday-tourney-csu-6/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1020369/1606691
Games Ahoy was the next day and with my performance at CSU, I felt pressured to not underperform. I was seeded second with only Acid above me. With that said, I’ve never made my seed in this scenario. I’ve been seeded second before and just fumbled it, so I was hoping to not have that happen this time.
Stoph, the Lucario who I did fight last week in top 8, was my first opponent. Stoph actually went Marth instead of Lucario for the whole set. I think Palutena struggles with swords, but I was able to take it 2-0 against Stoph.
Hina, the Bayonetta was my next set and like Stoph’s Lucario, Bayo didn’t make an appearance. Hina went Cloud instead and honestly, not a bad choice. Hina was doing fine, but I kept killing him really early by catching his jumps. I won game 1 from a slight deficit by gimping him and then had a decent lead game 2 the entire time, winning 2-0. I’m interested to see how the Cloud does next time.
Super/Ryo was my next match. His Diddy beat me in losers finals 2 weeks before, but I beat him the week before with my Steve that I worked on specifically for him. I figured I could do the same this week, and I did. I took a pretty close game 1 against his Diddy and he switched to Pokemon Trainer game 2. The Trainer was easier honestly, and I took the set 2-0. My Steve was decently clean and I’m happy with how I played. On to winners’ finals.
Acid is a jerk. He’s a Greninja main as anyone who’s read my blog for a while will know, but he decided to go Palutena game 1. I beat the Palutena and did better than the last time we did the Palutena ditto. He then went Pokemon Trainer like Ryo. I beat that as well. He then goes serious and picks Greninja. He reverse 3-0’s me. I even took first stock game 3 and 4, but Acid didn’t let me do much beyond that in each of those games. To losers finals we go!
Waiting in Losers finals, I find myself in a similar scenario to a few weeks ago. I beat Ryo in Winners, but will he come back in losers and take it again? Well, Ryo does make it back to me and says “I’m gonna stay all Diddy”. Game 1, he takes it. I wasn’t playing the match-up well enough and he got me. I buckled down, committed to camping more for the next game. I won pretty solid. Game 3 started and I was getting run over again. I noticed I was falling into my patterns of the first game of the set, so I started to camp more. I got Diamond and brought it back to rather close. I got a diamond fair to up smash, taking the game. Game 4 happened very similarly. I was behind, started to camp more, got a diamond, and then won with a cheesy thing. I can’t honestly remember it too well. I did win 3-1 and went on to the grand finals.
Acid was a jerk again and went Kazuya. Actually, he wasn’t a jerk, because his Kazuya kicked my ass. The last time he played Kazuya against me, I beat it, so he never tried it again. Since then, he’s obviously worked on it a lot and I can’t find out what to do against it now. I lost 3-0. I’m not sure what I can do against Acid. He plays very overwhelmingly. Against Greninja, it’s hard to fight him on the ground. His Dash attack is one of the few moves that beat my dash attack because Greninja’s foot goes under my shield. I’m wondering if pit might also help me against Acid. I know Plautena can do it, but it’s hard.
Here’s the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/foco-weekly-wednesday-202/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1022033/1608787/
I got second. I got a chunk of change too. I’m happy with how I did. Keeping Ryo from beating me again and only losing a game to him and Acid… not bad. It was a good week overall. I’m glad I performed how I did and hope I can keep it up next week. Thanks for reading!
Bernard Lamar Rice 