This week contained my highest highs and one of my lowest lows. Good thing that progress isn’t linear. I’ve convinced you guys of that already right? I really hope so. I think I learned a lot this week though and I still think the week was an overall win.
Going into CSU this week, I was excited. The last two weeks I outplaced my seed and got some good wins. I wanted to keep up the momentum and match my placement from the last 2 tourneys. I was probably seeded to get around 5th or 7th, I’m actually not sure, but I won’t spoil for you my actual placement.
My round 1 was a Ken player named Artorb. He wasn’t horrible, but I do believe I 3 stocked him in one of the games. I won 2-0. Palutena versus Ken is all about not letting Ken pressure your shield and I did pretty well avoiding that.
My next match was against Pibb. Pibb is the Pikachu player who has featured in this blog before multiple times. Pibb always gives me a challenge and this time was no exception. I won game 1 with a solid advantage but Pibb decided he wasn’t going to make the set easy and 2 stocked me in game 2. He was playing on fire and ended the match with a 2 frame dair on my teleport to the ledge. I went into game 3 with a large desire to win. I got a super early kill and set the pace for the match. That lead to me winning the game and the set 2-1. Pibb has an explosiveness that I can’t predict sometimes. All I can do is try to overwhelm him first but Pikachu has the tools to make that extremely hard. Good stuff to Pibb.
So right from Pibb into Puppy. Puppy is really good. He plays Kirby of all characters but still destroys most people in our region. I won our last encounter 2 weeks prior, but only barely. This week I started with Palutena. Our first game was close, but I took it. The second game was even closer but I found the win as well. I won 2-0. Puppy is my third upset in 3 weeks at this tournament. I was pumped. What was really different with this set was how patient I was playing compared to normal. Kirby can’t approach Palutena easily, so playing defensive with the lead is extremely difficult for Kirby to overcome. I was also playing faster when it counts and smarter overall. I’m really happy with how I did.
Acid was next. Oh, Acid. This Greninja main is the bane of my bracket on a weekly basis. This week I did better but still lost. I lost 2-0, but the games were closer than normal. Acid plays really fast and as I said, I was playing more patient against Puppy and it was the same here. I was catching his aggression but it wasn’t enough. I think my growth as a player helps me do better each week against Acid. When I improve my bait punish game, my reaction time, and decision-making, I get close to the win. One day, I’ll get it, but that wasn’t my day.
This next match was a first for me since the pandemic. Lieutenant L is a Terry main who was on the come up before the pandemic. He’s been a constant threat since but due to him not being able to make it to many tournaments, we haven’t met in tournament since COVID. I hadn’t lost a set to L before, but in friendlies, he always pushes me to my limit and usually beats me. I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but damn I messed him up in game 1. I 3 stocked him in game 1. I don’t know how. Game 2 was much closer and L was winning towards the end but I hit a clutch down air on his recovery to end game 2 winning the set 2-0. L was kicking my ass in friendlies before bracket but I’m glad I didn’t let it happen in the bracket. I hope to keep that up in the future because I would put L around my level, so a win on him is either an upset or a peer win in my personal assessment.
So what happened next was kinda crazy. The tourney ran long, so we couldn’t finish the bracket at the college. We moved to a local cafe called Alley Cat to finish top 4. Alley Cat was also going to close at midnight, so we were almost kicked out from there as well, but the guy closing was really cool and let us finish up the tourney there. Thanks closing guy!
My next match for 4th was against Robber. Robber is our Young Link main who is ranked 6th in the state. Robber and I haven’t fought much and every time we go at it since the pandemic, he makes quick work of me. This wasn’t much different. Robber took both games with a 2 stock. I had some plays but nothing enough to keep up with Robber. Robber keeps up a constant pressure with fire arrows which alone is a skill barrier for a majority of our state, myself being no exception. I think next time I go against him, I’ll work on not getting hit by fire arrows as my primary goal. I won’t get anywhere if I can’t do that.
Out at… 4TH AGAIN!!! 3 weeks in a row getting 4th with an upset along the way. This had me on a high. I only lost to two state-ranked players and got 2 solid wins on people who have beaten me in the past. After this level of consistency 3 weeks in a row, I felt comfortable elevating my idea of where I’m ranked in my personal rankings. My personal rankings aren’t a reflection of where I’d put myself on PR, but my personal, hopefully unbiased, assessment of my standing in my region. Now I can claim it’s unbiased, but here’s how I hope to convince you to believe me. I have no reason to lie to myself about how good I am. Obviously, feeling like I’m good makes me feel good, but if I personally think I’m better than someone who either beats me or places above me, why am I lying to myself? I want to get better and if I can’t accurately access where I am, I won’t know how to see actual progress. I’ll use Puppy as an example. I hope you don’t take this bad Puppy if you see this.
So I beat Puppy 2 weeks before this latest CSU. That was my second win on him after the pandemic compared to a bunch of wins he had on me. Even though I beat him, I wouldn’t put myself above him immediately. One win after a lot of losses isn’t reason enough to rank me above him. The week after that win, I out-placed Puppy. That’s good for me, but again, it wasn’t enough to rank me above him in my personal opinion. After this week’s win and another outplacement, I’d feel comfortable enough putting me around Puppy’s level. I’ve shown a 3-week consistency and I think that is now finally enough for me. This isn’t to say that I need to do that for 3 weeks in a row. A crazy win would probably have helped push my assessment too. I’ll use another example. Ryo is the Diddy who gave me some issues for a few weeks. He only got a single set on me and I ended up beating him 3 times after that but this week, he got a win on multiple state-ranked players. All in one week. Now we haven’t fought since then but even if we did and I won (which I doubt I would after what he did this week), I’d still not put myself on his level. He accomplished something multiple times in one week that I haven’t done at all. If he does lose to me next time we play, that’s a good win for me, but that just shows that I am a bracket demon for him and not a normal example of his skill. That’s my long-winded explanation of how I personally go about ranking myself against others.
Here’s the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/tuesday-tourney-csu-8/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1028907/1618517
So, CSU was a high. I mentioned a low. Here it is. Games Ahoy was my next tourney. It’s now on Thursday and in between CSU and Games Ahoy, I snuck in a grind session with Chronos on Wednesday. I was doing pretty damn well, but a pattern is emerging that I’ll explain later.
My first match at Games Ahoy set the tone for the whole tourney. I had to fight Giden, the Falcon main who is my girlfriend’s brother who I also live with… What the fuck… Giden took our very first set and I took the second. When we practice, he pushes me to my limit and I definitely don’t look forward to fighting him in bracket. I was pissed when I saw I had to play him first. Things were made worse when we finally got around to playing. The ruleset was wrong. Games Ahoy has been doing hazards on, which I do actually support. I like the stage list and I think it’s actually better than hazards off, but it makes the rulesets messed up sometimes. In our first attempted match, items started to spawn. I had the lead before we quit. Our second attempted game was going fine and Giden had an explosive opening that lead to me losing my stock. Palutena started to glow and we realized the final smash meter was on. I told Giden we could start the next match with me down a stock, but he insisted no. We then actually start our first game of the set and it’s close. Giden got 5 fake kill screens. I’m not kidding. I somehow still won the match and I could tell that pissed him off. I then 3 stocked him in game 2. He actually SDed his final stock. I won but honestly, I was pissed. I was pissed because we shouldn’t have had to play so early in the bracket. I want Giden to do well and it sucks to team kill like that. I was also pissed about the multiple false starts. What a shit show. I was in a bad mood after that.
My next match was against the Little Mac from Greely Colorado, Elfman Shaggy. Shaggy and I had fought before, but not since the pandemic. Little Mac is a weird character and I hate fighting him, but I was confident I could beat Shaggy. Well, I couldn’t. I won game 1, but lost games 2 and 3. Little Mac’s new shield-breaking power is really good. I got my shield broken twice and one of them was at the end of game 3. I played the match up very wrong. I should have just platform camped him the whole time, but I was too prideful and wanted to actually fight him. Fuck pride by the way. I know what to do next time. The set was still close and next time I won’t let my pride get in the way.
My first match in losers was RoboCop. On a good day, I don’t want to fight RoboCop, so I was not excited about this. RoboCop went on a 3 set winning streak on me that I finally ended a few weeks ago. His Chrom is super hard for my Palutena to deal with, so I went Pit to beat him then. This time, I decided to try Bayonetta. I decided on Bayo because, in friendlies earlier, I did well with her against Robo. Also, Hina, the other local Bayo beats RoboCop regularly. I won game 1. I don’t recall much about it. Game 2 I lost. I SD’ed early on and couldn’t make up the ground. I stuck with Bayonetta for game 3 and while it was close, I got a stale witch time on a F-Smash that was still enough to allow me to get an F-Smash of my own out. As soon as the witch time hit, I put up my fist for the dap because I knew it was over. I still wasn’t in a good mood and it felt good to get that win. Hopefully, my troubles with Chrom are over.
My next match is an interesting one and I’m still not sure what to make of it. It was against Pink Menance. If you check out the bracket, Pink was playing under Solax’s tag. Pink is a former top 3 state player and the former best player in Fort Collins. He’s really good and uses Samus. I wouldn’t expect to meet him here in the bracket, but he’s been going secondaries for the last few weeks. This week he was using Link and Mewtow. He’s still a force of course, but he’s not trying his hardest. He goes Link in the first game and I scraped by a win. I was losing for the majority of the game but found the kill on his final stocks before he found the kill on me. He brought out the Mewtwo game 2 and it did way better. I’d have thought it would be easier, but Pink’s Mewtwo was no joke. I switched to Steve game 3 and he goes back to Link. I was winning for the majority of the game, but he found the win in the end. I thought Steve would be a big mix-up against someone who hasn’t played in a while and it was, but Pink adapted fast and beat me. I lost 1-2. I don’t know what to take away from the set. I guess I should have stuck to Palutena. Even if he stayed Mewtwo, I’m sure I could have done better in game 3. Pink is theoretically a state-ranked player still, but these were his secondaries and I think I could have won if I played better, but I didn’t.
Out at 13th… OOF. That was a rough tourney. A loss to a Little Mac hurts, but it is what it is. So, that pattern I brought up earlier. Whenever I go over to Chrono’s house to practice, my next tourney is a disappointment. I think it’s a coincidence, but it always happens. You’d think practicing with the best player in the state who beat a top 15, potentially top 10 player in the world would only help, but my tourney directly after has always suffered. I’ll look into why that might be and I’d be open to any theories anyone reading has about this phenomenon. Either way, a good humbling after feeling a high from the CSU tourney. That’s good though. I shouldn’t be complacent. I think my mood really affected me this tourney. I should work on being able to separate my mood from my gameplay. A good lesson to learn. So obviously, after giving myself a rank up in my head after CSU, this tourney gave me pause on that idea. I think I’m still doing alright. It’s definitely a strike against me, but my consistency beforehand makes me think this might be an outlier. Only time will tell. If I can keep doing well, that’s good, but if I have a few more of these, obviously, that says something. I guess we’ll find out next week.
Here’s the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/foco-weekly-wednesday-204/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1027216/1615918
Thanks for reading. I might have to only do 1 tournament a week for a bit, but we’ll see. I have a new job and they’re already scheduling me on days I don’t want to work. It won’t be a problem forever, trust me. Have a good one.
Bernard Lamar Rice 