All Denver, all week.

November 22nd to the 28th

This week was an all Denver experience. Haven’t done two Denver tourneys in a week since around Summer. This was a good week overall but I have a loss I’m not thrilled about. Good thing progress isn’t linear!

IPA started off my week. I wasn’t thrilled about my placement last week and was hoping to do better this week. I went down with Rose, Scorch, and Crisis so it was a fun time just being with the people I went with. Robin says hi! (They told me to write that)

I started off on stream against Dubbz, a Pacman. I think Palutena does really well versus Pacman, but Pacman can definitely be a tough character to fight. His ability to box and camp is unlike many other characters, but Palutena’s projectiles are anti-camping and her boxing tools are much better than Pacman’s. Dubbz started off game 1 strong, but I soon found my stride and ended game 1 with 2 stocks. Game 2 was very similar and I won the set 2-0. 

Here’s a link to the set in the stream VOD: https://youtu.be/WMZEfl0wfyM?t=451 

My second set of the tournament was a first. I had to fight Shoe! Shoe is currently 3rd in the pre-season state rankings and was number 1 back when I first showed up to Colorado. I never fought Shoe before, but I knew this was not in my favor at all. Shoe started with Diddy as opposed to their main, ZSS. Diddy versus Palutena is rough of course, and the results showed. While Shoe was on their last stock, they sd’ed their second stock and was clearly dominating me for the majority of the game. Game 2, Shoe actually went their main, ZSS! I was pretty happy about that. I wanted the real deal! The ZSS was clean and like game 1, the only reason it ended with Shoe only having 1 stock was because they Sd’ed. I lost 2-0. Not surprising, but upsetting. I’m aiming for a state-ranked win, and Shoe is towards the upper end of that list. Obviously, it’s not going to be easy, but playing these players is the first step towards getting a win. In terms of what I need to improve, I think something Shoe really exposed in my gameplay was my lackluster defense. Shoe’s offense was constant and overwhelming. I actually think I needed to swing more to ward off Shoe’s pressure. Hope I get to fight Shoe more in the future.

My first match in losers was a King DeDeDe(DDD). The last time I fought a DDD, I barely lost, and this match-up is straight free for Palutena. This time I went in with no pride, I just wanted to win. I camped so hard. This DDD wasn’t as good as that last one I lost to, and I won in a rather solid 2-0. Camp!!!

My next match was another first. I had to fight fellow Fort Collins player, Crisis. Crisis is a Luigi who started to pop off during the pandemic. We hadn’t met in bracket at all since the pandemic, but Crisis has beaten me before with Wolf. He works a lot so he can’t go to many tournaments, but he was off this last week and made it out to IPA. So game 1 was goofy, I won, but lost 2 of my stocks to footstools from failed drop zone Nairs’. Game 2, I got 2 stocked. I got grabbed at Zero on my last stock and died. Game 3 was close, but with both of us on our last stocks, I flubbed a teleport to midstage, bounce off the edge, but thankfully went high instead of low, but that allowed Crisis to charge an F Smash and I died at around 50% pre-hit. I lost 2-1. This was a tough loss for me. Luigi is a weird character. I usually do well SDI’ing the Zero to death and Palutena can usually destroy Luigi off stage. I think a big problem was, I stopped trying to edge guard after game 1. Even though I won, I stopped going hard off stage because I lost 2 of my stocks to it. I think I just need to jump around the potential footstool and keep up the edge guarding. I was doing a good job for most of the set by camping on platforms and forcing him to get me out of zero to death range, except for that last stock in game 2.  

Out at 13th. Not a horrible performance in Denver and not horrible losses. Wish I coulda beat Crisis, but I think it taught me some good lessons. 

Here’s the Bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/improper-popoff-arena-22-11-22-21/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1034764/1626381

The next tournament I went to was the BOW Mid Weekly. I haven’t been to a BOW in a while, but since CSU was canceled, I needed a second tournament. I went with my two best friends here in Foco, Robin, and Strawberry. It was a great time with some good friends of mine! 

My first match was against Kaweeta. Kaweeta and I fought a while back. I won our last encounter but since I’ve been having a Chrom problem recently, I was scared of this match. To my surprise, it wasn’t the Chorm I was fighting, but a Sora. I never fought a Sora in bracket before, so this was yet another first for this week. Game 1 was very much in my favor. I won in a 2 stock, or a last-stock low percentage scenario. Game 2 Kaweeta opened up much stronger and was winning for the whole match until I got them to their last stock. I then practically did a zero to death, winning the game, and the set 2-0. Sora’s disadvantage is really bad, so it was pretty easy to get one hit and keep him in disadvantage forever. 

My next match was against Chronos. Oh boy. Last week I took a game! This week, I didn’t take a single stock. I got rolled over in games 1 and 2. I feel like after losing a game to me, Chronos didn’t want to let me even get a chance. I was getting overwhelmed from the start of the match, and then had to approach grenade popping Snake… I think my plan should be to try and get that lead and keep it. Force Snake to approach and keep that lead. 

My first match in losers was Dubzz, the Pacman from earlier in the week. The match went very similar to the last one. I won 2-0. 

Slatty was next. Slatty is probably the strongest Pokemon Trainer in the state. He’s not PR level, but he’s around the top 20 area. I’ve never fought him before and wasn’t liking my odds. Game 1 starts and I get the early lead and rode it to the end. I took game 1. After that, I was feeling it. I was telling myself in my head “You can do this” and I did. It was a close match. In the end, I was camping with the lead and he threw out a reckless Flare Blitz. I shielded it and punished it with a down smash.  I won the set 2-0. I was so happy I couldn’t even hold onto my controller. I don’t know why, it just felt like a step closer to getting a top 10 in-state win. 

My next match was against Bry, a Yoshi that I fought at ESF once. He was camping with egg most of the set back then so I was expecting that this time. That didn’t really happen. He was more camping at Yoshi’s burst range. Every time I whiffed a move, I would get hit from really far away. Yoshi’s air mobility is insane and it really overwhelmed me. Both games were really in Bry’s favor and I lost. For next time, I’ll stop throwing out moves when he’s looking to drift in and whiff punish me. I can also shield and grab most of Yoshi’s moves, so just playing defensive could really help me in that match-up.

Out at 9th! 9th in Denver is really good for me. I did something at this tournament that I haven’t done before, and this might sound weird. I started tapping into my desire to win. I don’t know how to explain this, but I don’t usually try that hard, at least in my mind. I guess I viewed Smash mostly as “I’ll play correct or I won’t win”, but I learned that wanting to win can help a lot. I played with a lot of drive versus Slatty, and I’m going to try to keep that up. 

Here’s the bracket:https://smash.gg/tournament/the-midweekly-22/event/ultimate-singles/brackets/1037898/1631006

Next week should be another IPA and hopefully CSU, but we’ll see what happens. Thanks for reading yall.