[{"content":"Intro This piece began as a response to the following comment on reddit by the user monoplatajones. I have no beef with this person and wish them only the best. I simply disagreed with them and got to typing a response that grew far too much to fit into the reply chain. The original thread was a discussion in which a relatively new grappler asked if De La Riva and other \u0026ldquo;gi guards\u0026rdquo; were necessary, or if \u0026ldquo;no gi\u0026rdquo; guards like butterfly and half guard were enough. The comment was as follows:\n\u0026ldquo;People really like to point to Marcelo or Wardzinski but there’s a really good reason almost no one plays inside position based guards as their primary attacking position in 2026, people are too good at using pant grips to attack from the top position and you’re giving them easy access by putting the feet in front.\nMarcelo was winning in the gi 15 years ago, things have come a LONG way at the top.\u0026rdquo;\nFirstly, I have to point out that this specific assertion, worded the way it was is objectively incorrect. While supine without any grips, the guard player\u0026rsquo;s feet are much more \u0026ldquo;in front\u0026rdquo; than they would be from seated just by simple anatomical fact. Becaue of this, almost every athlete, regardless of level, plays the engagement phase of guard sitting up while they fight for an initial grip (assuming a disconnected state to begin with). The actual point here is that most gi guard players do drop back to supine position once they have established a grip, and I believe that the point the user was trying to make was that the reason for this is because of the threat of outside passing the pants. I do not necessarily disagree with this, but I do question handwaving the best counterexamples. Even if you dismiss Marcelo as too far in the past to be relevant (I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t; people stood up to pass, death gripped the pants, and blasted both gear and torreando passes since long before he retired), you have to contend with the fact that Wardzinski was the #1 ranked gi athlete in the world a short time ago, and seemed like he could have kept it up for a while longer if he so chose, and ignoring that level of excellence would be an enormous mistake. It also can\u0026rsquo;t be explained away with him being a physical outlier, as I have seen people attempt to do in the past. He\u0026rsquo;s a big, strong guy, but he\u0026rsquo;s also a professional athlete who weighs over 200lbs. Everyone at that size is strong. If anything, he looks and performs like way less of a physical freak than many of the others in his weightclass. I would submit that this indicates that his game is effective in the gi at the highest levels, and doesn\u0026rsquo;t rely on some unique set of physical attributes. For a further example, you could also look to Bruno Malfacine, whose career took place largely in between those of Marcelo and Adam, and also favored inside position guards.\nLesser Reasons For The Disappearance So, we have established that there have been dominant champions throughout the history of Jiu Jitsu who play butterfly, and that they do not all share some unique athletic/physical profile. Why, then, is it still a relatively rare style? That is a question that is impossible to answer in absolute, objective terms, but I can at least offer a few hypotheses:\nThe ideal style for seated guard is not culturally favored in most BJJ gyms. When you watch someone like Marcelo Garcia play guard, it looks very little like the mental model of a laid-back, technically superior Jiu Jitsu master setting traps and waiting for a reaction. He is bolt upright, aggressively seeking his preferred grips and attacking sequences, instantly stripping any unwanted connections his opponent makes. This is unquestionably still good Jiu Jitsu; his success in the absolute division against titans is proof enough of that. But it is also the sort of thing an instructor is likely to tell a white belt to chill out with. That isn\u0026rsquo;t a knock against coaches: I myself spend a great deal of time telling beginners to calm down, but at the formative stages of development, it can be difficult to distinguish between \u0026ldquo;seize the initiative\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;club my training partner with all my might for no reason\u0026rdquo;.\nSeated position doesn\u0026rsquo;t allow the bottom player to abuse flexibility for retention. I expect this could be a little more controversial of a point, but I will defend it. Being able to walk into the gym and put both your legs behind your head without warming up doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you have \u0026ldquo;good guard retention\u0026rdquo; any more than being able to squat 700lbs and flinging people off you means you have \u0026ldquo;good escapes\u0026rdquo;. It is not good Jiu Jitsu, and I think it is silly that we pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, it is a common part of the game, especially at lower weight classes, and a lack of access to their normal self-pretzeling abilities to bail them out of bad spots almost certainly contributes to people choosing not to play the seated style.\nPeople follow established metagames. While I did point out that there are examples of dominant butterfly guard players across the history of Jiu Jitsu, there are even more examples of people dominating in the gi with supine guard positions, and success begets success. Those athletes of course spread their style to their own students and fans, and further generations of supine guard players are born.\nI would submit that the relative rarity of inside position has more to do with Brazilian convention than most people realize. This is far more relevant in the gi than without it, because if you haven\u0026rsquo;t taken a look at IBJJF rankings recently, just know that Brazilians continue to dominate. And if you talk to many Brazilians, you will notice that they consider things like double sleeve or collar/sleeve just\u0026hellip;the way you play open guard. That\u0026rsquo;s their starting point. The idea that you\u0026rsquo;d do something different is almost alien.\nThe Big Problem All of those prior explanations may or may not hold water based on the reader\u0026rsquo;s evaluation of my arguments, but most of them are cultural or historical in nature, not technical. This begs the question: Are there actual, technical reasons that seated guards may be less favored in the gi? I believe the answer is yes. I think that it is fundamentally true and demonstrable that seated/inside position is a \u0026ldquo;live by the sword, die by the sword\u0026rdquo; choice, particularly in the gi. Losing the ability to use leg pummeling against pant grips is a major issue, even when the guard player is not unduly relying on flexibility. In fact, I would call it the central problem of the position. One thing Wardzinski and Marcelo Garcia have in common is that sometimes people would manage to blow by their legs at the very beginning of the match, using athleticism to quickly secure a momentary \u0026ldquo;pass\u0026rdquo;. I put \u0026ldquo;pass\u0026rdquo; in quotes there because, while the opponents did often manage to get around their legs, securing position and scoring was far less common. This is due to the fact that, in addition to butterfly, they are also both masters of late defense (Wardzinski more with turtle, Marcelo more with late seated retention and early side control escapes), and were excellent at parlaying near-disastrous positions into a favorable connection vs someone who preferred to remain disconnected on the outside. That\u0026rsquo;s praise for their skills, certainly, but it\u0026rsquo;s also an undeniable downside of the system. In a perfect world, our guard protects us and gets us to good position without incurring risk. However, there is another side to that coin: these people also never really get stymied or stalled out. It is very common for supine guard players to go down by sweep/takedown points (or even just an advantage) and get stalled out for minutes at a time, unable to create meaningful action. By contrast, guys like Wardzinski (Marcelo was basically never down on points later in his career in the gi, but the same would apply in theory) can consistently mount comebacks when swept or taken down because their system allows them to push the action in a ways more a passive one simply cannot.\nSolution Models That of course leads us to: if standing pant grips have the potential to be such kryptonite for seated guard positions, how have there been dominant champions playing those positions throughout the history of Jiu Jitsu? Are they magical, special outliers whose success is impossible to replicate? Of course not. Fortunately, this is an arena in which we do not have to engage in cultural speculation, as the athletes in question have left us a beautiful, concrete legacy in the form of their recorded matches and technique.\nThe first of these to go over will be Adam Wardzinski, who is the most recent competitor and also the most \u0026ldquo;pure\u0026rdquo; guard player I will cover. By that I mean that while Adam is certainly capable of takedowns, and is fantastic on top, you rarely see him truly jockey for the takedown from standing position. Instead, he opts to pull virtually every time if that battle is contested. I will keep this section relatively brief, because other people have already done a fantastic job of analyzing his game. Perhaps best known in this space are BJJScout and RixtyGarami\u0026rsquo;s excellent analysis videos of his game. However, most relevant to us here is Corey Walker\u0026rsquo;s excellent article for Flo Grappling, wherein he explains how Adam funnels standing passers into his game almost verbatim how I would. To quickly recap his content, as well as summarize my own understanding of his game:\nIf Adam can obtain a right-handed grip on the opponent\u0026rsquo;s left sleeve, he is, as the kids say, \u0026ldquo;big chillin\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo;. He is able to use that grip to block passes, attack dummy sweeps, and enter shin to shin.\nIf Adam cannot obtain that grip, or finds himself defending against circling/knee cuts, he will use a half guard/reverse De La Riva hook and a shin to shin on the same leg to stretch and ground the opponent. From there, he threatens a double attack with his knee lever sweep and the half butterfly with an over the back belt grip.\nThe next athlete I will touch on with this is Marcelo Garcia, who is probably the most historically discussed in this space. Unlike Adam, Marcelo was more willing to battle for the takedown in his matches, but still pulled frequently. As for how Marcelo navigated this situation, I believe it can be boiled down to two things: phenomenal handfighting to obtain his preferred two on one grip, and fierce, nuanced late defense. The actual process of his hand fighting could merit a novella length piece of writing on its own, but suffice it to say that I think Marcelo Garcia might be the best handfighter the sport of BJJ has ever seen. The consequences of this are obvious: he was usually able to find his two on one grip, and when you have a tight two on one grip, outside passing suddenly goes from deeply threatening to a near nonissue. Some great examples of his handfighting with the two on one in action can be seen here and here. In both matches, the story is similar: Marcelo pulls guard, either already with the two on one, or fights to it immediately afterward. He then leverages the grip to weather the initial passing storm and eventually find his preferred bottom position with inside hooks. On the flip side, Marcelo did not really seem to have anything like Adam\u0026rsquo;s shin to shin+half guard hook to ground disconnected standing passers. He either got the two on one grip, or he leaned on that aforementioned late defense. By \u0026ldquo;late defense\u0026rdquo; I mean the family of techniques that he pioneered/made popular that blur the lines between wrestling, guard retention, and side control escapes. Marcelo would combine the conventional frames, shrimping, and leg pummeling with less common but still powerful tools like short arm frames, the \u0026ldquo;James Brown\u0026rdquo; split, and the elbow push escape to make sure that even when opponents \u0026ldquo;passed\u0026rdquo; his legs, they never really secured the position as a real pin that scored points. Because all of these defenses are \u0026ldquo;late\u0026rdquo;, they also allowed him to reenter his offensive cycle, because the opponent would inevitably be close enough for Marcelo to engage his butterfly hooks (or stand up).\nLastly, I will point to an athlete that I have as of yet barely mentioned: Bruno Malfacine. I am not quite as familiar with him as with the other two, but his success and longevity are undeniable, and he did indeed play a significant amount of butterfly guard in his career. Those with longer memories may recall that Malfacine was known more for his top game than his guard, which is true. However, I think this overlooks the extreme efficiency he had in the guard position, using his mastery of inside position to sweep and wrestle up against some of the best competitors to ever do it. Indeed, while writing this I rewatched a number of his old matches and struggled to find a single instance of his guard really failing him; virtually all of his losses came about as the result of his opponents\u0026rsquo; incredible guard work, not as a result of his failures in bottom position. How then, did he solve the problem I described with the engagement phase? Largely, he didn\u0026rsquo;t. The double guard pull is incredibly common at rooster weight, and was even more so before the rules changed to limit it. That in mind, Malfacine\u0026rsquo;s competition strategy seemed to be to use a flying \u0026ldquo;sit\u0026rdquo; guard pull to get forward momentum and pull at the same time as his opponent. He would then use his inside position, superior wrestling, and compact frame (not to mention unusual physicality) to come up on top, starting the match up an advantage. That is all fine and good, but what about if the opponent successfully came up on top, or if the opponent declined to pull altogether? In the first case, the double pull itself obviates solving the engagement problem. By definition, someone coming up from a double pull is already engaged and connected, which lets the bottom player immediately begin to use their hooks. As for when the opponent did not pull (rarer than you might think at rooster, if you\u0026rsquo;re unfamiliar), the flying nature of his pull would often win him connection without a particularly technical or involved process. The most interesting case, however, is what happened when it didn\u0026rsquo;t. As mentioned, Malfacine enjoyed superiority on the feet to most of his opponents, and so in this case his strategy preyed on what I believe is the primary weakness of outside passing with pant grips: before strong grips are established, it does little to keep the bottom player down. Malfacine in these positions would not tolerate a cagey guard passer leaping around his guard. He would instead go to his knees, and seek grips and/or takedown opportunities from there. This is perhaps best illustrated in his match with Gui Mendes at Pans 2012, where he used this strategy to score and eventually win vs a legendary competitor while giving up size (although yes, he absolutely stalled while on top). I would also note that this strategy is not without value even if you cannot assume better wrestling. Hand fighting from the knees/one knee is immensely easier than from seated position (more extendable length, better mobility), and building height also gives access to \u0026ldquo;flying\u0026rdquo; guard pulls, or at least sitting with forward momentum once grips are obtained.\nSynthesis So what is the consequence of all this? I feel that I have made a reasonably strong case for the viability of butterfly guard in the gi, regardless of era or weightclass. That is all fine and good, but it would be better if we could extend this beyond the realm of academic argument. More to the point, how can this impact you, the reader, and potentially help your Jiu Jitsu? If you choose to play seated guards, we can distill our takeaways into a handful of points:\nLearn Some ****ing Takedowns. Remember how I called Wardzinski closer to being a pure guard player? Here he is hitting a single leg in the finals of the world championships. Pulling guard should be a tactical choice, not an excuse to ignore standing position. The increased access to takedowns from bottom position is one of the key advantages of seated guard systems, and it would be wildly remiss to leave them on the table.\nControlling A Sleeve is Key All of the athletes we have covered share this same characteristic: their choice of weapon against the pant grip is to control a single sleeve (double sleeves provide comparatively little value for a seated player). Marcelo uses the two on one. Adam uses the cuff grip one on one. The results are similar: relative safety and a powerful offensive platform. Consider handfighting from the feet or knees a la Malfacine if a sleeve isn\u0026rsquo;t immediately available; every moment you spend on your butt disconnected from an athletic enough guard passer is a moment you could be passed in a flash.\nThe Collar May Be A Trap None of the examined athletes seek a collar grip as their primary platform, and that is worth noting. Playing seated with a deep cross collar grip is one of the most classic attacking platforms in the gi, but you\u0026rsquo;ll see it sought out seemingly not at all by the sport\u0026rsquo;s best butterfly players. The answer for why this is the case might be as simple as the fact that collars are much further away than sleeves (for the guard player). I am not about to claim that the cross collar grip is weak, but it is much more difficult to find than sleeve grips vs a standing opponent, and it is very plausible that the extra time and space required to get it will allow an athletic, savvy opponent too much time to take their own grips and begin passing.\nSeated Retention Is Not the Same as Supine Retention An enormous deal has been (rightly) made of supine guard retention in recent years, and the average Jiu Jitsu practitioner is better for it. The same cannot be said of seated retention. Ideas like the short arm frame, the wrestler\u0026rsquo;s switch, and heisting out of pass attempts have yet to really catch on with the rank and file grappler. Many of the best exemplars of these techniques in the modern era are no gi athletes, but some of the best butterfly players of the past used them extensively (Marcelo), and they remain transferable to the gi to this day.\nWhat Remains To Be Done The above summarizes (on a very surface level) some of the options and principles that contributed to the success of butterfly players in the past, but what of the future? After all, one of the only constants in Jiu Jitsu is change, and it would be implausible (not to mention disappointing) to think that the seated guard of 2036 would look identical to the seated guard of today. Here, I lay out some prospective tools that I think will be used and problems I believe may need to be solved moving forward.\nThe Belt Grip Belt grips (with an underhook, an over back grip, or a cross arm and belt) are nothing new for seated guard. However, they have primarily been used against kneeling opponents, and usually reach the back of the belt for elevation or butterfly sweeps. The front of the belt is also a powerful grip, and with a stiff arm is incredibly difficult to pass. Furthermore, it is frustratingly difficult for the passer to break, often requiring a commitment to big, opportunity-creating motions to accomplish. Saulo Ribeiro is an advocate of this grip for butterfly, and Terere used it some, so there is also historical precedent. It has fallen off for the moment, but I think the right athlete could have great success with it in the future.\nA Bridge From The Outside Sometimes, no matter how good a player\u0026rsquo;s seated guard is, the smart retention option will be to go to their back and use their legs to ensnare the opponent. This can be done with either wide \u0026ldquo;outside position\u0026rdquo; legs blocking the torso/outsides of the legs, or with a half guard/reverse De La Riva hook. Adam Wardzinski has provided us with a superb model for how to bridge the latter with butterfly guard techniques, but no real, battle-tested equivalent exists for outside position. I do not know what this might look like. I\u0026rsquo;ve experimented with it, but found nothing satisfactory. What I do know is that a powerful, consistent transition from this spot would be a great boon to inside position players everywhere.\nGamesmanship I do not like this aspect of competitive Jiu Jitsu, but it is important: A major reason we do not see people using heisting and handfighting from the knees/more expanded positions like Malfacine is that under many rulesets, were they to be knocked down (two inches into the position they were in moments ago), it would score for the opponent. In my ideal ruleset, this would be irrelevant (people would be rewarded for positions rather than actions), but I do not make the rules. If seated guard players could figure out a way to insulate themselves from this possibility, it would no doubt make playing the position more appealing for IBJJF competition.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/jiujitsu/the_case_of_the_missing_butterfly/","summary":"An examination of why we see less inside position in the gi, and what champions do differently","title":"The Case Of The Missing Butterfly"},{"content":"Killing Puff With a Grab as Marth: A Realistic Guide. Note: This is an old Marthcord post I made in 2019 I\u0026rsquo;ve spruced up and posted here. The level of editing/communication may not be perfect, but it should still prove useful. All percents are pre-grab, not post-throw or post-tipper. I am aware that this is not how melee calculates knockback, but I would submit that thinking in these terms is more useful for humans who are going to be focused on landing the grab and evaluating their subsequent options. All percents here true combo with port one. It is that in a couple of cases things may combo very slightly longer, and definitely combo for slightly wider percent ranges with port four.\nCliff Notes Use these as a quick reference, but be aware that this section alone will not give you a full understanding.\n50-77 percent: Mixup=fthrow pivot tip vs dthrow raw tip\n78-100 percent: Mixup=fthrow pivot tip vs dthrow pivot tip\n100-110 percent: Mixup= fthrow dash+WD tip vs dthrow pivot tip\n110-120: Cannot tip DI up+in, must Uair. Other DIs still subject to fthrow dash+WD tip vs dthrow pivot tip\n120-130: Dthrow bad, choose to cover down+away and up/up+in, or other DIs. RC dsmash, uair, or dash+WD fsmash respectively.\n130-150+Fthrow RC fsmash or uair on reaction.\nGuide Firstly, we begin with some ideas and percentages to keep in mind. While fthrow and dthrow create a mixup for tipper fsmash opportunities extremely early (earlier than 35 percent, which is as low as I tested), there are generally better, easier, more consistent and more damaging conversions to go for at those percents, and so our guide will begin at 50 percent, the earliest tipper setups will generally kill on Yoshi’s Story. Beginning at 50 percent, all non-down+away DIs are covered by pivot tipper forward smash. Down+away DI is covered by down throw forward smash, no pivot required. This introduces us to a core theme: While it is not feasible until 130 percent to kill all DIs on reaction off of one throw, it is possible to create a 50/50 kill scenario at most percents before then by creating a mixup with fthrow/dthrow. This basic 50/50 (fthrow pivot tipper vs dthrow raw tipper) lasts until 78 percent, when down+away DI is no longer hit by dthrow-\u0026gt;raw tipper fsmash. At this percent, Marth must pivot fsmash to cover down+away DI with down throw. Conveniently, 78 is also the percent up+in DI from Puff stops being hit with fthrow pivot tipper. Instead, Marth must dash JC usmash. This is possible on reaction while still covering other non-down+away DIs with pivot tipper, but is admittedly extremely difficult potentially to the point of unfeasible.\nThe next major milestone is at 82 percent. At 82 percent, straight away DI is no longer hit by fthrow pivot tipper. Instead, Marth must fthrow WD tipper (or dash+WD) tipper, which requires a read/commitment to wavedashing. However, both away and down+away DI are still covered by dthrow pivot tipper, leaving the 50/50 intact This is important mostly because this is the percent Puff no longer has to hit one specific DI to escape fthrow pivot tipper. Still, the basic mixup of fthrow vs dthrow pivot tippers exists for a while longer, lasting until 100 percent.\nAt 100 Percent, the mixup remains intact but changes its nature. While fthrow pivot tipper covers no DI until 106 percent, away DI and up+away DI require dash+WD fsmash to cover. Because no DI and DI down are also hit by dash+wavedash tipper at these percents, I recommend switching to dash+WD as the default option after fthrow at these percents, as dash+WD can cover DIs that are not down+away or up+in, which are (thankfully) still covered by down throw pivot tipper at these percents.\nThings change again at 110. Starting at 110, up and in DI is not smash-attackable, and can only be meaningfully hit by uair. That means that until uair kills, this will always be the DI Puff wishes to hit past 110 percent. All other DIs are still subject to the mixup of fthrow Dash+WD fsmash vs dthrow pivot fsmash until 120 percent. For this reason, I recommend an immediate throw between 110-120 to minimize the Puff’s chances of hitting up+in DI.\nThings get very awkward at 120. Dthrow Pivot tipper stops working on DI down+away, and Marth still lacks a meaningful way to cover DI up+in beyond uair. Addtionally, DI straight up also is now only covered by uair. However, on some stages a Puff DIing a throw up+in or up and then getting uair’d can kill past 120 percent. Notably, this always kills on Yoshi’s and Pokemon, and depends on DI and exact percents on other stages. Because dthrow only ever nets up air and dash attack at these percents, and the uair is often too low to kill except on Yoshi’s, at 120 I generally recommend engaging in a mixup not in what throw Marth uses, but in what followup he chooses. Run cancel dsmash to cover DI down+away (true and tippers), uair to cover DI up and DI up+in, and dash+WD fsmash to cover all other DIs. It is important to note here than Marth can dash immediately to cover both down+away and the up/up+in DIs with either RC dsmash or uair on reaction, but must commit to covering other DIs with dash+WD f smash. This allows these percentages to remain a 50/50 in terms of coverage if not throw choice. This is, however, quite difficult, and if pummeling is an option it is recommended to pummel to 130 to reach the next section.\nFinally, we reach the highest percents: 130 and beyond. While it is never ideal to let Puff live until these percents, in real life we must acknowledge that it does happen, and somewhat frequently at that. Luckily, we have a guaranteed kill option at these percents: Fthrow into uair or run cancel fsmash. From 129 to 150 (and likely further), Marth can fthrow, immediately dash, and then choose to either up air vs up+in or straight up DIs, or run cancel fsmash all other DIs. These true combo, and the cue on whether to end the dash early to go for the uair is visually obvious. Early on in this percent range, the timing window in which run cancel fsmash true combos is relatively narrow, but it DOES true combo even on down and away DI, so long as one dashes immediately after fthrowing Puff and then run cancel fsmashes at the earliest opportunity. Keep in mind this forward smash will not tipper on all possible DIs, but at these percents the only stage that matters on is Dream Land. Furthermore, at the earlier points in this percent range, up air will not kill on Dream Land.\nBeyond those percents, there are still DIs/throws that can confirm into a kill, but past 150 percent grabbing Puff becomes less important. This is in large part because side b 1 breaks ASDI down at 154, and because tipper fair, uair, and even nair all begin to kill around this range.\nOn Tipper Downsmash/JC Upsmash Technically, it is possible to kill JigglyPuff with forward throw on almost any DI from whenever tipper down smash begins killing all the way to \u0026gt;150%. This is because any time Puff DIs down+away enough to escape pivot/WD/dash+WD forward smash, dash+WD downsmash or run cancel downsmash true combo. Run cancel downsmash begins true comboing into a tipper at 90 percent, and a fast-enough dash into a precise and quick enough WD true combos from 50 percent or even a little earlier, which is before tipper down smash kills on any stage/stage positioning combination besides near the edge of Yoshi’s. However, in my opinion it is not realistically possible to react to the DI and choose between pivot tipper/dash+WD downsmash/JC up smash. While it is possible to reactively JC usmash up+in DI instead of attempting to pivot tipper, the window for dash+WD downsmash is small enough that Marth must commit almost immediately upon throwing, making the downsmash effectively hard read on down+away DI. This makes it generally inferior to engaging in forward vs down throw mixups at those percents, as the pivot options cover a much broader range of DIs. Furthermore, the timing window to true combo the downsmash is extremely narrow, and unlike the fsmash it is almost always beaten with a buffered jump out if the Marth is imperfect. This also often then leads to a rest. Interestingly, because run cancel down smash begins true comboing into a tipper at 90 percent, it may be possible to reactively cover this DI while also covering most/all other DIs with pivot tipper/JC usmash. This is because it does not require relatively early commitment to a wavedash. Regardless, it would be extremely difficult and would require much more testing. The exception to this rule is vs up+in DI from 100 until whenever fthrow-\u0026gt;uair begins killing on the stage that you are on, as JC usmash no longer combos depending on damageflyroll vs damageflyn (it combos longer on damageflyroll. If you don\u0026rsquo;t know what those mean\u0026hellip;it\u0026rsquo;s beyond the scope of this piece) past 100 percent. At this (narrow) percent range, killing Puff is not guaranteed from fthrow even with theoretical perfect reactions and DI recognition.\nClosing Thoughts I recommend initially instant fthrowing Puff until at least 82. Make them prove they have the ability to hit the down+away DI with consistency. Pivot fsmash is hard enough to be consistent with as it is, no need to add a 50/50 if they’re incapable of hitting the DI. Puff is capable of option selecting down+away DI while crouching though, so be on the lookout for that to be incorporated more broadly into the metagame. After 82 when more DIs start to escape fthrow pivot tipper, it may be more worthwhile to engage in the mixup intentionally by slowing down the throw or even adding in the pummel. Instant throws become more appealing at 110 when up+in DI becomes more problematic. However, in the 120s, pummeling to 130 becomes the option of choice against all but the best mashes, as it generates an opportunity for a guaranteed kill from fthrow.\n…And that‘s it. I’ve only listed things here that don’t depend on getting damageflyroll, or else JC usmash and dash+WD fsmash would last longer/work on more DIs.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/marth_vs_puff_grab_kills/","summary":"The Evil Balloon Must Die","title":"Marth Vs Puff Grab Kills"},{"content":"Forward Before beginning this piece, I would like to acknowledge a few points. I bring these up both to preempt criticism and allow the reader to understand where I am coming from, but I do not think they should be taken to diminish or discount any of the rest of this.\nIt probably doesn\u0026rsquo;t really matter what terminal emulator you choose. The overwhelming majority of people using computers day to day, and even most developers, probably aren\u0026rsquo;t using advanced features. Even more, those who are using advanced features probably already know their tool of choice so well that switching would end up costing them more time than it eventually saves. I am not in that .1% of roles where my choice of terminal emulator is critical to performance. I could do all of my work on the default Konsole or Terminal.app easily enough, if I so chose. I also don\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;live in the terminal\u0026rdquo; as an object of philosophical fixation; I am just as happy to use a GUI app if it provides a better experience. If that gives you pause in listening to me, be advised. There is more information here than 99% of users will ever want/need. For the vast majority of readers, jumping to either the minimalists section or superlatives would be the best thing, depending on whether you are heavily resource constrained (or just a big fan of minimalism) or not. Terminals And Their Evaluation There are a number of criteria on which you can evaluate a terminal emulator: Available platforms, included features, configurability, performance, UX, efficiency, and much more. Common examples of this include a given terminal\u0026rsquo;s support for various image protocols (iterm, sixel, and kitty), the amount of configuration options and their ease of use, the presence of a built in multiplexing solution, whether they are easily extendable through scripting, etc. In this piece I will conversationally evaluate all of these things, but also include as much objective information as possible. I will do this in part by listing the available platform(s) at the top of each section, and providing a set of benchmarks at the bottom. For this I will use Alacritty\u0026rsquo;s vtebench tool, the benchmarking \u0026ldquo;kitten\u0026rdquo; from kitty (when possible), and testing the terminal\u0026rsquo;s start time Hyperfine on Linux (I have yet to find a good mac equivalent for the mac exclusive terminals). The machine that I used to run most of these measurements on uses an Intel i7-12700KF CPU at 5.1Ghz, NVidia 3080Ti GPU, 48GB DDR5 RAM, and a 2TB NVME SSD. It runs NixOS for the Linux terminals. For the Mac exclusive ones, I used a 2024 Macbook Pro with an M4 Pro Silicon chip and 24GB RAM. I will make sure to test some of the cross platform options on the Macbook as well to ensure comparisons are reasonably fair. All of these benchmarking comparisons were run using the latest version of these programs available on the unstable branch of nix packages (nixpkgs) on the weekend of April 11th, 2026, or the standard version available in homebrew (in MacOS). Lastly, I will also include RAM utilized while idle. I am not personally a huge believer in the utility of benchmarks in this regard (most terminals are fast enough and consume few enough resources that it won\u0026rsquo;t really matter), and massive amounts of TTY throughput isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily reflective of how we might use them day to day, but they may be useful as a guideline for curious or resource-conscious users.\nThe Defaults The following terminals are the ones you primarily use because they come preinstalled on your system. That isn\u0026rsquo;t to say that they are bad; entire careers have been conducted in Terminal.app, oftentimes by people making a lot more money than me. What it means is that these terminals all share a handful of characteristics that users should keep in mind before committing to using or not using them. These terminals are all relatively lightweight, tend to be a little lighter on the need for configuration, and are extremely unlikely to be abandoned by their developers (the benefit of first party tools). However, they are also universally not GPU accelerated (read: a little slower), less customizable than some other options, and generally behind on cutting age features (usually a drawback to a first party tools).\nKonsole Konsole is the terminal associated with the KDE Plasma desktop environment for Linux. It is one of the best examples of the KDE philosophy ecosystem I can think of; maximal in terms of features, highly customizable (especially for an included terminal app), and altogether attractively designed. As for downsides\u0026hellip;there really aren\u0026rsquo;t many. The real \u0026ldquo;downsides\u0026rdquo; of Konsole are more about what it does worse than other options than about anything it does outright wrong. It just isn\u0026rsquo;t as performant (lacks hardware acceleration), configurable, or efficient as the options I would consider to be the very best, nor does it have any special integrations with the KDE environment that might especially motivate people on that DE to stick with it. In my book, Konsole is a textbook example of \u0026ldquo;good, but not the best\u0026rdquo;. I cannot think of a real reason to recommend it to anyone over the very best options, but at the same time it is more than adequate, and could be most peoples\u0026rsquo; daily driver without issue.\nLink To Benchmarks\nxfce4-terminal xfce4-terminal (xfce-term) is the terminal associated with the xfce Linux distribution, a distro known for being very lightweight and resource un-intensive, targeting older or weaker machines. It is a common choice for those wishing to \u0026ldquo;resurrect\u0026rdquo; an old laptop that no longer has the horsepower to run the latest Windows (or heavier Linux distro) effectively. The terminal, then is more or less exactly what one might expect. It is very lightweight, consuming around 30MB of RAM for me whilst idle, among the very lowest of any options that I have tested. It also starts up very quickly, the fastest of any options outside of the Minimalists section. It actually does have image support through the sixel protocol, but does not support the Kitty image protocol or have any hardware acceleration. Of any of the built-in, distro-specific terminals, I have to say this might be my choice for best executed in terms of achieving its goals. As of 2026-04-06, xfce distro uses X11, and the primary competition xfce-term posses in the minimalist space there is against st-term. While st-term is by no means bad, I cannot really say that it is necessarily better than xfce-term. Indeed, I personally do not see the benefits of switching, and if I were on a very weak machine running the xfce distro, this would probably be my terminal of choice.\nLink To Benchmarks\nTerminal.app Terminal.app is the default Mac terminal, no doubt familiar to many, if not all readers. It is also the terminal I have probably used the most of any in this piece, having used it for around a year somewhat heavily when I switched to using Mac OS for work. Amusingly, as many other users can attest, a very significant portion of my use of Terminal.app was listening to other Mac users ask \u0026ldquo;Why don\u0026rsquo;t you switch to iterm2?\u0026rdquo; This annoyed me at the time, as I wasn\u0026rsquo;t particularly interested in bothering with various different terminals, but in retrospect it was a very legitimate question. Terminal.app is configurable in terms of both settings and appearances, but really, it plays the little brother role to both iterm2 and other options in virtually every way. It is less configurable, less performant, less beautiful, and similar in terms of resource consumption. It isn\u0026rsquo;t awful by any means, but unless absolute stability and desire to install no extra programs are your only real criteria, I don\u0026rsquo;t really see much of a point to remaining with it. Even for the most die-hard Apple enthusiasts, iterm2 out \u0026ldquo;Macs\u0026rdquo; this default Macintosh application. Not recommended.\nLink To Benchmarks\nPtyxis Ptyxis is the terminal currently associated with the GNOME DE for Linux, and it appears as though it will be the terminal of choice for that platform moving forward. For those unfamiliar, this is signficant because GNOME has gone through three terminals (that I know of) in its lifetime: GNOME Terminal (classic, minimalist terminal), GNOME Console (AKA kgx, an intended upgrade to GNOME Terminal that appears abandoned) and now Ptyxis. Of all the terminals that come as defaults with the major Linux distros, this is among the most \u0026ldquo;modern\u0026rdquo;, featuring GPU acceleration, highly active development, and a level of customizability really only rivaled by KDE Konsole in this \u0026ldquo;default Linux terminal\u0026rdquo; space. Even more, it has a unique hook: the native integration of per-tab container oriented tools and environments. Put simply, each Ptyxis instance (and each individual tab) can be associated with a given container, making switching between multiple containers (or opening new tabs within the same container) a breeze compared to other offerings. While this is not particularly helpful to my personal workflow, I can absolutely see it being relevant to a great number of users. I have to say: I am overall fairly impressed with Ptyxis, and I think it accomplishes what it sets out to do better than most, up there with xfce4-terminal in terms of default terminals meeting their goals.\nBest For:\nUsers for whom switching containers is paramount Users very attached to the GNOME environment/toolset Link To Benchmarks\nThe Curiosities These terminals are, for whatever reason or another, not for me, and I do not recommend them. However, that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that I believe they are bad; Indeed, most of them have some kind of hook (thus the name) that might make them interesting to you. Rather, I simply believe that either they possess drawbacks I am unwilling to tolerate or, are mostly or entirely outmoded by other offerings.\nTabby Please do not use Javascript to write your terminal emulator. Just because you can, does not mean you should.\nCool-Retro-Term (CRT) CRT is an example of a terminal where I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if it\u0026rsquo;s really trying to be a serious entry into the terminal space. CRT is named as such because it attempts to mimic the appearance of a classic cathode ray tube (CRT) television. In that, it succeeds with flying colors. However, as a daily driver terminal, I am just not sure why you might actually use it. It lacks any kind of image support, and while it is hardware accelerated, it still isn\u0026rsquo;t as fast as a lot of other options. It also lacks the extensive configurability of a lot of its peers. Add that to the fact that the CRT aesthetic is actually much harder to read than standard terminal text, and I can only recommend if you value the retro aesthetic above all else. Still, it may be worth an install just for the sake of having around to look cool.\nLink To Benchmarks\nWarp Warp almost merited its own section. It is a very unique case, and I have struggled to evaluate it in comparison to other options. For those who may be unaware, Warp is a terminal focused on integrating LLMs/AI directly into the terminal experience. It markets itself as \u0026ldquo;the agentic development environment\u0026rdquo;, and pushes those features hard in all of its promotional material. It is also worthy of note that Warp is a VC backed product rather than an open source project like the other terminals on this list. This suggests it will likely have high development velocity, but also an elevated possibility of becoming abandonware in the feature, should the company not work out financially. When using Warp for the first time, users are asked to\u0026hellip;log in? A strange thing to be sure, but it makes sense for a platform focused on paid AI integration. That being said, I will not pretend like it wasn\u0026rsquo;t immediately off putting, and felt wrong in a space that is normally about the blooming of a thousand free flowers. Ultimately, I decided for this piece to evaluate Warp with the AI features disabled, which is mercifully a very convenient toggle. This may seem unfair as it effectively disables Warp\u0026rsquo;s killer app, but at the same time AI integration is different than what the other options terminals are doing that I felt quality comparison with them on would be impossible. With AI integration off, one major positive should be said for Warp: it\u0026rsquo;s very pretty. The default \u0026ldquo;Warpified\u0026rdquo; prompt is sleekly modern and attractive, and several of the built in backgrounds/color options look great. It also comes bundled with a few majorly cool features. The first of which the user is likely to notice is its \u0026ldquo;blocks\u0026rdquo;: visual groupings for commands and their outputs, which are an appreciable boost to visual coherency. Even cooler, these blocks can be shared with others using Warp. It also has built in completions/suggestions that usually require shell configuration to get in the terminal, which isn\u0026rsquo;t terribly useful to most veterans but is probably very nice for new users. It even has its own built in IDE, which I personally question the utility of, but may be desirable for those looking to unify their workflow under one development platform. Unfortunately, I do think that, despite all these positives, the bell ultimately tolls for Warp, because it gets a number of the basics wrong. Firstly, all of these bells and whistles come at a cost, as Warp uses more than double (almost 600MB!) the amount of RAM of next hungriest terminal while idle. Furthermore, despite being a heavily developed Rust project, it is slow, noticeably so compared to many other options (although it defied my attempts to apply several of the benchmarks). It also lacks the configurability and extensibility of many of the best options in this space, despite presenting as a very maximalist choice. With the AI off, Warp certainly has redeeming qualities, but I find it difficult to recommend in light of its shortcomings.\nLink To Benchmarks\nContour Contour is a terminal I found out about from a forum post by Wez Furlong, the creator of WezTerm. Contour is a modern GPU accelerated terminal written in C++ focusing on performance, and in that it would appear to succeed. Anecdotally, it is one of the snappier terminals I have used. Less anecdotally, when using actual benchmarks, it lags well behind some of the frontrunners. Still, it\u0026rsquo;s performant to the point that it isn\u0026rsquo;t really an issue, and has a solid look/feel. That being said, I am unsure whether or not it really offers anything over other options to make it a solid choice. This is an excellent example of terminal that doesn\u0026rsquo;t really do anything wrong (except for some strange default keybinds), but at the same time doesn\u0026rsquo;t do enough different/better to stand out from other options, at least in my humble opinion.\nLink To Benchmarks\nThe Minimalists Here we arrive at terminals that deliberately do less. That suck less, in one case. These terminals deliberately seek to keep things as simple and streamlined as possible, and should appeal to those who find most software bloated beyond any real purpose. I am a big enough sucker for pretty lights and avant garde nonsense that daily driving these did not turn out to be for me, but I certainly see the appeal for a significant subset of users.\nSimple/Suckless Terminal (st) st term in an interesting case: First of all, explaining the name: It is a terminal by suckless.org. It is commonly referred to as \u0026ldquo;suckless terminal\u0026rdquo; colloquially, but seems to be called simple terminal or \u0026ldquo;st\u0026rdquo; by its maintainers. If you are familiar with suckless philosophy, you probably have a decent idea of what kind of software this is. If not, a reasonable way of expressing it is to say that, in their minds, most software sucks because it does too much. Simple terminal then is exactly what you would expect from such a group: the absolute most minimal terminal possible. No hardware acceleration. No image support. Ligatures? Scrollback? More like BLOAT (suckless adherents call everything bloat). As a trade off for these things, you get simplicity and blazingfly fast startup times (65ms), second only to Foot. That being said, I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I really recommend it. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t beat xfce4-terminal by enough in any category to really push for it, and some of the things it deems bloat I would call basic quality of life, particularly scrollback.\nBest for:\nThose demanding the utmost (utleast?) minimalism on X11 Link To Benchmarks\nFoot Foot is a terminal emulator built for the Wayland display server on Linux that strives to have the smallest footprint possible. Ha. Puns aside, it does an incredible job. It uses the single least amount of RAM of any terminal that I have seen (25MB for me whilst idle), a ridiculously small binary (\u0026lt;5MB), and has a startup time so fast that it borders on imperceptible: ~30ms normally, ~16.5ms when using its special client/server configuration, as though it needed to be even faster. It also doesn\u0026rsquo;t even totally eschew image support despite its minimalism. Overall, I am a big fan of Foot, and if you are on a Wayland DE and want the fastest, lightest terminal available, look no further.\nBest for:\nUsers with extremely limited resources in terms of space/hardware power Usecases where startup time is paramount for one reason or another Fans of minimalism in general Link To Benchmarks\nThe Contenders These are good-to-great terminal emulators. They check all the major boxes, and I think deserve serious consideration from users. While I don\u0026rsquo;t recommend these quite as strongly as I might the superlatives, they are still strong offerings that you could spend your whole career with and be quite happy.\nAlacritty Alacritty\u0026rsquo;s influence and legacy in the realm of terminal emulators can scarcely be overstated. It ushered in the modern era of GPU accelerated terminal emulators, and remains the gold standard for speed to this day. In fact, its parser is used in many other terminals in the ecosystem. It is rock solid, stable, and really all but beyond reproach in what it does. Why, then, do I not give it the highest possible recommendation? Because I think that in 2026 it exists in a bit of a no man\u0026rsquo;s land. It is very fast, but so are kitty and Ghostty, and both of those distantly outstrip it in terms of features. It does have a minimal footprint compared to those\u0026hellip;but if you want minimalism, Foot is much more minimal while also being fast at a lot of tasks. If you\u0026rsquo;re looking for a feature-light, midweight terminal that works at blistering speeds, Alacritty cannot be beat. I simply question the size of the audience for whom that is the ideal.\nLink To Benchmarks\nRio Rio is a modern terminal emulator built in Rust, and has a surprising amount of features for what appears to be mostly a one-man-band project. Perhaps its most unique \u0026ldquo;hook\u0026rdquo; is its integration with RetroArch shaders, allowing a degree of customization over the look/feel of your terminal that can\u0026rsquo;t really be had anywhere else. These shaders can range from CRT emulation like Cool-Retro-Term all the way to the truly bizarre. Productive? Probably not, but they are genuinely cool. Rio also sports a configurable \u0026ldquo;hints\u0026rdquo; system that can show/suggest keybinds where relevant, which is a neat feature. Overall, Rio does a lot right: it\u0026rsquo;s fast, feature rich, supports every image protocol, and has a much smaller binary footprint than similar competitors. Unfortunately, I also think it just tends to be a little buggier in my testing than many of the other options (I just opened it to an immediate freeze while typing this), and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t do quite enough good to launch it into the [Superlatives](the superlatives) category regardless.\niTerm2 iTerm2 (iterm) is a very old, very feature complete terminal that stands as one of the jewels of the MacOS development ecosystem, widely beloved by users for well over a decade at this point. It is the gold standard for color support, introduced its own image protocol, and had built in multiplexing long before any of the Linux options I have covered dared to try it. It\u0026rsquo;s not all roses, however: iterm is slow compared to many of the modern options (slow enough I thought something might be wrong while benchmarking it), favors an absolutely sprawling GUI config rather than file-based config (a matter of taste, but I find the latter strongly preferable), is very resource hungry at \u0026lt;350MB of idle RAM consumption, and has somewhat dated and less than excellent documentation. I also find its scripting cumbersome compared to, say, WezTerm. Still, it has a lot of devoted adherents, and in my research for this piece I believe I discovered why: iterm was \u0026ldquo;good\u0026rdquo; before anything else was. All of those \u0026ldquo;modern\u0026rdquo; features I listed? iterm was doing them 10 years ago, long before anyone else. I don\u0026rsquo;t use iterm anymore for a number of reasons (I think other choices have mostly surpassed it, and I value having cross platform solutions), but it is easy to see why it has built such a strong following. It has faithfully carried users from before I ever wrote \u0026ldquo;Hello World\u0026rdquo; into the modern day while scarcely showing its age, and that is something to be proud of.\nBest for:\nHappy users who don\u0026rsquo;t feel like a switch Mac loyalists Link To Benchmarks\nThe Superlatives The following terminals can be used by everyone, but in my opinion also represent the true endgame for terminal enthusiasts. These terminals vary significantly in terms of their strengths, empahsis, and underlying technologies leveraged, but all share the following: Great user experience, high configurability, and cutting edge features. I recommend all of the terminals here unreservedly, and have enjoyed my time with each of them.\nWezTerm WezTerm is a a terminal emulator by developer Wez Furlong, written in Rust and featuring all the goodies one could imagine in a modern terminal emulator. That isn\u0026rsquo;t an exaggeration - If I had to pick the single most feature-rich terminal, I would pick WezTerm. It might be easier to list the things it doesn\u0026rsquo;t do. It supports every image protocol under the sun. It has a special \u0026ldquo;copy mode\u0026rdquo; to enable easy selection of text without reaching for the mouse. It has its own special enhanced ssh integration with a built in custom library. It possesses built in support for multiplexing without the use of tmux/screen/zellij/any other third party solution. It is a pioneer of highly configurable scrollback with a multitude of unique settings. It has very thorough and digestible documentation. Rather than a GUI config or a toml/json/conf file, it is configured in the Lua scripting language, allowing condional config and scripting potential that is virtually unmatched in the terminal space. With all of these positives, one might ask: Why would you ever use another terminal? For starters, it isn\u0026rsquo;t the fastest, or even close. In terms of both startup time and benchmarking metrics, it is easily the slowest of the Superlatives. It is also the least actively maintained of this group, not seeing a major release since Feb. 2024. Furthermore, most of these fun, advanced features require a significant amount of configuration to take full advantage of, which brings us to the next point: Lua config can be a double edged sword. While the incredible amount of extensibility it offers is no doubt appealing to many, just as many others won\u0026rsquo;t want to put a lot of time into actually \u0026ldquo;programming\u0026rdquo; their terminal config. WezTerm\u0026rsquo;s defaults are really nothing special, and unless you\u0026rsquo;re already a Lua wiz (looking at you, Neovim users), it takes little bit of work to get where you want to be, certainly the most of any of the maximalist emulators. Even still, all of the positives I previously mentioned still stand, and it\u0026rsquo;s fast enough that most people would never perceive the difference in speed without actively looking. All in all, WezTerm comes highly recommended from me.\nBest for:\nPeople who demand the utmost in customizability from their terminal Tinkerers: those who genuinely enjoy exploring the possiblities with tooling. Link To Benchmarks\nkitty kitty\u0026rsquo;s tagline is \u0026ldquo;If you live in the terminal, then kitty is made for YOU!\u0026rdquo; A bold, albeit playful claim. One that of course begs the question: Does Kitty live up to it? I would say yes, to the point where I will open this section by saying that kitty is my current terminal of choice, and I have been very happy with it. Firstly the good: kitty is extremely performant. In fact it is in contention with Alacritty for most performant terminal, and is infinitely more feature rich than that one competitor. In terms of what Kitty can do, its only real competition is WezTerm in terms of feature richness and flexibility. Configuration in kitty is done in a massive kitty.conf file, which can be intimidating at first, but is probably the single most exhaustively commented file I have ever encountered. It also does not require the user to learn Lua for configuration if they are not familiar (although I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t call basic Lua terribly prohibitive), which is also a plus. The existence of a config file might suggest that things are less scriptable than with WezTerm, but that is not necessarily the case. Instead of a using the same setup for configuration and scripting like WezTerm does with Lua, Kitty has the concept of \u0026ldquo;kittens\u0026rdquo; (awww), which are small Python (and sometimes Go) programs that can be used to script terminal behavior. These kittens can be very powerful, with some of the built in ones enabling a menu of hotswappable themes, a clipboard protocol that works even over ssh, a custom in-terminal diffing solution, and much more. Overall, I would say that creating your own kittens has a somewhat higher barrier to entry than just extending your Lua config in WezTerm, but this is balanced by the fact that basic configuration with a .conf file requires a lesser initial investment. In terms of multiplexing, kitty\u0026rsquo;s solution is called \u0026ldquo;sessions\u0026rdquo;, which are simple scripts in .kitty-sessions files that define a layout/programs to launch for kitty and are then called with a keybind or command. With all of those positives, one might be tempted to ask \u0026ldquo;What are the downsides of kitty?\u0026rdquo; And truthfully, one of the biggest bits of praise is to acknowledge that that the shoe never really drops. I have yet to really find any major downsides with the terminal itself. Indeed, the only prevalent complaint I see other people have with kitty is a dislike of the primary maintainer (Kovid Goyal, who is also the main author of Calibre), who is known to be more than a little prickly at times. As far the program itself though, kitty knocks it out of the park, and I can\u0026rsquo;t think of a stronger recommendation than reiterating that it\u0026rsquo;s what I now use every day.\nBest for:\nTerminal users willing to do some configuration, but not necessarily as much as with WezTerm Those demanding the utmost performance while still maintaining the highest level of feature completeness Link To Benchmarks\nLink To macOS Benchmarks\nGhostty Ghostty is by far the newest of the terminals in this section, being less than two years old (for its public release). It is known for being what is probably the flagship application for the relatively new low level language Zig. This is significant detail not just for language enthusiasts, but because of what it means for Ghostty as part of an ecosystem: being the public face of a whole language means Ghostty is likely to get a lot of extra attention, and with extra attention comes extra development and more maintainers. Indeed, despite being less than a quarter of kitty\u0026rsquo;s age, it already has a similar number of commits from an even greater number of contributors. Ghostty is also known for using native rendering for each major platform. WezTerm and kitty look like themselves regardless of whether the user is on Windows, Mac, or Linux. By contrast, Ghostty looks like a native Mac app on my Macbook, and the sharpness and coherency of the design immediately jumps out. As for performance, Ghostty does not quite meet the lofty standards set by Alacritty and Kitty, but in truth the margin of difference is small enough that it is vanishingly unlikely to be meaningful in the real world; it is not the difference between slow and fast, but rather lightspeed and ludicrous speed. As for configuration and features, Ghostty does lag slightly behind its older compatriots. Ghostty config is done in a very simple .ghostty file that uses an extremely simplified \u0026ldquo;key=value\u0026rdquo; syntax, and relies on online reference documentation to provide a list of the available options. It also lacks any native support for advanced scripting features that Kitty and Wezterm have, as well as having no built in session/multiplexing abilities, relying on tmux or similar external software. This might lead the reader to wonder: \u0026ldquo;If it\u0026rsquo;s just fast and pretty, does it really stack up to the best?\u0026rdquo; The answer to that is \u0026ldquo;yes\u0026rdquo;, for two reasons, the first of which was already touched on: It has the most active development of any terminal. The momentum behind it is incredible, and if I had to pick a terminal cart to attach my metaphorical horse to for future purposes, I would choose Ghostty. It does not have quite all of the niceties of Kitty/WezTerm now, but I can very easily imagine a future world in which it does. The second reason is even more important, and one that we have yet to cover: The fact that, out of the box, Ghostty blows every other terminal away. Other terminals take what I would call a very old school approach to configuration: they are incredibly power, but little to nothing is done for you. The concept of a \u0026ldquo;sensible default\u0026rdquo; is treated as an affront to generations of tinkerers who enjoy spending an inordinate amount of time configuring and hacking to make the software truly their own. Ghostty takes the opposite approach, aiming for \u0026ldquo;zero config for most users\u0026rdquo;, and it shows. Ghostty is imminently usable and beautiful immediately after installation, and many of the nicest things about it are discoverable without so much as reading a line of documentation. I myself am one of those tinkering weirdos, but I also recognize that the majority of users are not, and I truly wish that other terminals would take a lesson from Ghostty and ship an experience that doesn\u0026rsquo;t require digging to find any of the magic. Until then, Ghostty runs absolute laps around the competition in this department.\nBest for:\nPeople who just want to download a terminal and be done with it, without missing out. People playing the long game and choosing based on what might be best in the future Zig enthusiasts Link To Benchmarks\nClosing Thoughts: I enjoyed trying out so many different terminals and learning more about them. I did not at all enjoy compiling the benchmarks; I\u0026rsquo;m just not that specific brand of nerd. More importantly, it should be noted that this is a very mature, very seemingly \u0026ldquo;complete\u0026rdquo; space, and so it is inspiring to see the ecosystem so dynamic and thriving to this day.\nBenchmarks Section Below are the benchmarks taken for each of the terminal emulators. They are here at the bottom for ease of comparison, and also so that they do not overwhelm the rest of the text.\nFoot Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 25 MB (normal), 18 MB (server mode), 31 MB total (active server/client)\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 717.43ms 278.8 Unicode chars 1.57s 115.6 CSI codes with few chars 1.65s 60.6 Long escape codes 2.2s 356.1 Images 1.15s 463.3 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 2425 1.22 MiB 3.68ms \u0026lt; 4ms 0.48ms dense_cells 2115 1.29 MiB 4.12ms \u0026lt; 5ms 0.35ms light_cells 1940 1 MiB 4.61ms \u0026lt; 5ms 0.55ms scrolling 81 1 MiB 123.32ms \u0026lt; 131ms 7.21ms scrolling_bottom_region 79 1 MiB 127.2ms \u0026lt; 139ms 10.09ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 81 1 MiB 123.73ms \u0026lt; 135ms 7.78ms scrolling_fullscreen 1658 1 MiB 5.57ms \u0026lt; 6ms 0.7ms scrolling_top_region 84 1 MiB 119.69ms \u0026lt; 128ms 7.63ms scrolling_top_small_region 74 1 MiB 136.05ms \u0026lt; 147ms 8.11ms unicode 1121 1.06 MiB 8.39ms \u0026lt; 8ms 5.46ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mode Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU Normal 29.7 ms 1.6 ms 26.7 ms 34.4 ms 100 37.2 ms 7.6 ms 4) Startup Time (hyperfine, client mode with server running) Mode Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU Client (server alive) 16.7 ms 0.9 ms 14.4 ms 20.1 ms 158 0.5 ms 0.5 ms Ghostty Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 188 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 1.83s 109.1 Unicode chars 1.59s 114.0 CSI codes with few chars 1.98s 50.5 Long escape codes 7.16s 109.5 Images 7.64s 69.8 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 1050 1.22 MiB 9.19ms \u0026lt; 10ms 0.53ms dense_cells 768 1.29 MiB 12.34ms \u0026lt; 13ms 0.7ms light_cells 1260 1 MiB 7.27ms \u0026lt; 8ms 0.56ms scrolling 63 1 MiB 158.63ms \u0026lt; 180ms 16.51ms scrolling_bottom_region 62 1 MiB 161.39ms \u0026lt; 181ms 14.11ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 63 1 MiB 158.86ms \u0026lt; 178ms 16.72ms scrolling_fullscreen 670 1 MiB 14.45ms \u0026lt; 16ms 1.54ms scrolling_top_region 64 1 MiB 157.88ms \u0026lt; 182ms 16.57ms scrolling_top_small_region 62 1 MiB 160.97ms \u0026lt; 180ms 14.09ms unicode 992 1.06 MiB 9.59ms \u0026lt; 11ms 1.79ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 258.5 ms 18.9 ms 245.0 ms 297.8 ms 10 173.2 ms 111.9 ms Cool Retro Term Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 218 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 6.23s 32.1 Unicode chars 3s 60.3 CSI codes with few chars 2.02s 49.6 Long escape codes 5.06s 154.8 Images 13.87s 38.5 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 805 1.22 MiB 11.74ms \u0026lt; 12ms 2.29ms dense_cells 780 1.29 MiB 12.21ms \u0026lt; 12ms 4.54ms light_cells 590 1 MiB 16.4ms \u0026lt; 17ms 1.81ms scrolling 45 1 MiB 225.04ms \u0026lt; 235ms 5.94ms scrolling_bottom_region 54 1 MiB 187.74ms \u0026lt; 200ms 10.6ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 58 1 MiB 174.21ms \u0026lt; 214ms 25.12ms scrolling_fullscreen 327 1 MiB 30.35ms \u0026lt; 30ms 2.05ms scrolling_top_region 54 1 MiB 185.91ms \u0026lt; 208ms 13.73ms scrolling_top_small_region 61 1 MiB 165.92ms \u0026lt; 187ms 15.34ms unicode 706 1.06 MiB 13.84ms \u0026lt; 13ms 14.89ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 375.0 ms 27.2 ms 345.2 ms 444.8 ms 10 156.1 ms 185.6 ms Contour Emulator Benchmarks Passive RAM usage: 288 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 6.04s 33.1 Unicode chars 6.31s 28.7 CSI codes with few chars 2.97s 33.7 Long escape codes 3.44s 227.6 Images 1.58s 336.9 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 843 1.22 MiB 11.09ms \u0026lt; 11ms 0.36ms dense_cells 1320 1.29 MiB 7.04ms \u0026lt; 7ms 0.22ms light_cells 371 1 MiB 26.38ms \u0026lt; 27ms 0.52ms scrolling 68 1 MiB 146.82ms \u0026lt; 165ms 16.58ms scrolling_bottom_region 56 1 MiB 180.79ms \u0026lt; 196ms 11.85ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 57 1 MiB 175.44ms \u0026lt; 191ms 10.39ms scrolling_fullscreen 539 1 MiB 18.01ms \u0026lt; 18ms 0.14ms scrolling_top_region 55 1 MiB 182.53ms \u0026lt; 193ms 8.24ms scrolling_top_small_region 56 1 MiB 178.95ms \u0026lt; 190ms 9.13ms unicode 299 1.06 MiB 32.93ms \u0026lt; 34ms 1ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 375.0 ms 27.2 ms 345.2 ms 444.8 ms 10 156.1 ms 185.6 ms Alacritty Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 143 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 1.68s 118.9 Unicode chars 1.32s 137.5 CSI codes with few chars 1.33s 75.3 Long escape codes 5.71s 137.4 Images 1.31s 406.3 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 1624 1.22 MiB 5.77ms \u0026lt; 6ms 0.52ms dense_cells 1603 1.29 MiB 5.95ms \u0026lt; 6ms 0.3ms light_cells 2042 1 MiB 4.17ms \u0026lt; 5ms 0.42ms scrolling 86 1 MiB 116.47ms \u0026lt; 125ms 5.67ms scrolling_bottom_region 84 1 MiB 119.21ms \u0026lt; 129ms 7.93ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 83 1 MiB 120.18ms \u0026lt; 132ms 9.2ms scrolling_fullscreen 925 1 MiB 10.32ms \u0026lt; 12ms 1.73ms scrolling_top_region 83 1 MiB 120.24ms \u0026lt; 129ms 7.32ms scrolling_top_small_region 82 1 MiB 121.79ms \u0026lt; 129ms 5.64ms unicode 1803 1.06 MiB 5.02ms \u0026lt; 5ms 0.15ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 156.4 ms 25.7 ms 137.6 ms 229.5 ms 12 67.5 ms 84.8 ms Ptyxis Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 242 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 1.13s 177.3 Unicode chars 1.59s 113.8 CSI codes with few chars 2.41s 41.5 Long escape codes 3.3s 237.5 Images 2.17s 246.1 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 796 1.22 MiB 12.05ms \u0026lt; 32ms 13.23ms dense_cells 784 1.29 MiB 12.36ms \u0026lt; 27ms 11.35ms light_cells 3412 1 MiB 2.48ms \u0026lt; 5ms 2.32ms scrolling 62 1 MiB 160.92ms \u0026lt; 170ms 6.76ms scrolling_bottom_region 64 1 MiB 157.69ms \u0026lt; 167ms 7.22ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 61 1 MiB 165.2ms \u0026lt; 173ms 6.96ms scrolling_fullscreen 796 1 MiB 12.08ms \u0026lt; 15ms 3.26ms scrolling_top_region 59 1 MiB 171.39ms \u0026lt; 184ms 9.07ms scrolling_top_small_region 60 1 MiB 168.82ms \u0026lt; 178ms 7.36ms unicode 757 1.06 MiB 12.71ms \u0026lt; 32ms 23.32ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 488.1 ms 24.2 ms 443.9 ms 531.0 ms 10 234.5 ms 224.5 ms Konsole Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 129 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 3.92s 51.1 Unicode chars 2.44s 74.0 CSI codes with few chars 2.57s 39.0 Long escape codes 10.1s 77.6 Images 17.58s 30.3 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 701 1.22 MiB 13.93ms \u0026lt; 17ms 1.89ms dense_cells 676 1.29 MiB 14.11ms \u0026lt; 18ms 2.53ms light_cells 701 1 MiB 13.83ms \u0026lt; 16ms 1.75ms scrolling 56 1 MiB 180.55ms \u0026lt; 202ms 17.09ms scrolling_bottom_region 60 1 MiB 169.3ms \u0026lt; 190ms 21.21ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 59 1 MiB 171.75ms \u0026lt; 194ms 18.09ms scrolling_fullscreen 460 1 MiB 21.35ms \u0026lt; 31ms 4.74ms scrolling_top_region 66 1 MiB 152.24ms \u0026lt; 183ms 20.44ms scrolling_top_small_region 63 1 MiB 159.17ms \u0026lt; 191ms 22.53ms unicode 681 1.06 MiB 14.07ms \u0026lt; 11ms 56.25ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 189.1 ms 6.8 ms 172.8 ms 199.8 ms 15 116.3 ms 35.2 ms Warp Emulator Benchmarks Warp refused to provide output and resisted my attempts to attain benchmarks with the both vtebench and hyperfine. I would imagine that has to do with some bit of being standards non-compliant, but I will admit that I did not dig terribly deep. Anecdotally, it\u0026rsquo;s noticeably slower than the best options, but not to the point of being a major problem.\nIdle RAM usage: 582 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 3.76s 53.2 Unicode chars 3.03s 59.7 CSI codes with few chars 3.03s 33.0 Long escape codes 4.16s 188.5 Images 3.44s 155.1 Terminal.app Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 44 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 4.19s 47.8 Unicode chars 2.93s 61.8 CSI codes with few chars 2.14s 46.8 Long escape codes 4.99s 157.3 Images 5.61s 95.1 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev dense_cells 485 1 MiB 20.01ms \u0026lt; 20ms 0.17ms medium_cells 283 1.02 MiB 34.93ms \u0026lt; 36ms 0.94ms scrolling 60 1 MiB 140.98ms \u0026lt; 143ms 31.43ms scrolling_bottom_region 87 1 MiB 115.09ms \u0026lt; 117ms 1.28ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 87 1 MiB 115.4ms \u0026lt; 117ms 1.1ms scrolling_fullscreen 55 1 MiB 156.45ms \u0026lt; 159ms 22.04ms scrolling_top_region 87 1 MiB 115.22ms \u0026lt; 116ms 1.23ms scrolling_top_small_region 86 1 MiB 115.94ms \u0026lt; 117ms 0.79ms sync_medium_cells 271 1.06 MiB 36.46ms \u0026lt; 40ms 7.47ms unicode 597 1.06 MiB 16.26ms \u0026lt; 48ms 20.92ms iTerm2 Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 377 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 9.09s 22.0 Unicode chars 15.93s 11.4 CSI codes with few chars 37.28s 2.7 Long escape codes 10.04s 78.1 Images 19.34s 27.6 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev dense_cells 103 1 MiB 96.66ms \u0026lt; 123ms 19.18ms medium_cells 19 1.02 MiB 539.68ms \u0026lt; 576ms 26.35ms scrolling 180 1 MiB 29.11ms \u0026lt; 33ms 2.87ms scrolling_bottom_region 18 1 MiB 560.11ms \u0026lt; 569ms 4.54ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 18 1 MiB 559.61ms \u0026lt; 565ms 4.82ms scrolling_fullscreen 134 1 MiB 47.05ms \u0026lt; 55ms 4.93ms scrolling_top_region 4 1 MiB 2711.5ms \u0026lt; 2768ms 42.65ms scrolling_top_small_region 18 1 MiB 562.94ms \u0026lt; 583ms 10.03ms sync_medium_cells 17 1.06 MiB 611.24ms \u0026lt; 623ms 9.86ms unicode 104 1.06 MiB 97.61ms \u0026lt; 82ms 141.24ms xfce4-term Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 51 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 937.42ms 213.4 Unicode chars 1.46s 124.1 CSI codes with few chars 2.7s 37.0 Long escape codes 3.11s 252.2 Images 2.06s 258.9 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 885 1.22 MiB 10.64ms \u0026lt; 57ms 26.94ms dense_cells 932 1.29 MiB 10.48ms \u0026lt; 42ms 18.32ms light_cells 2382 1 MiB 3.83ms \u0026lt; 15ms 6.06ms scrolling 61 1 MiB 165.13ms \u0026lt; 166ms 20.84ms scrolling_bottom_region 68 1 MiB 147.85ms \u0026lt; 156ms 6.55ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 65 1 MiB 153.52ms \u0026lt; 172ms 14.94ms scrolling_fullscreen 965 1 MiB 9.87ms \u0026lt; 14ms 3.91ms scrolling_top_region 71 1 MiB 141.3ms \u0026lt; 148ms 5.32ms scrolling_top_small_region 71 1 MiB 141ms \u0026lt; 152ms 8.31ms unicode 708 1.06 MiB 13.91ms \u0026lt; 30ms 45.49ms st Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 14 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 2.93s 68.3 Unicode chars 1.95s 92.9 CSI codes with few chars 12.85s 7.8 Long escape codes 7.59s 103.3 Images 5.09s 104.7 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 697 1.22 MiB 14ms \u0026lt; 14ms 2.35ms dense_cells 225 1.29 MiB 44.01ms \u0026lt; 46ms 3.67ms light_cells 820 1 MiB 11.79ms \u0026lt; 12ms 0.68ms scrolling 44 1 MiB 228.18ms \u0026lt; 230ms 1.63ms scrolling_bottom_region 52 1 MiB 192.31ms \u0026lt; 194ms 1.67ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 55 1 MiB 184.27ms \u0026lt; 186ms 3.75ms scrolling_fullscreen 580 1 MiB 16.84ms \u0026lt; 17ms 0.7ms scrolling_top_region 53 1 MiB 191.53ms \u0026lt; 192ms 0.82ms scrolling_top_small_region 54 1 MiB 186.7ms \u0026lt; 190ms 4.28ms unicode 26 1.06 MiB 412.46ms \u0026lt; 1164ms 478.29ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 65.7 ms 14.9 ms 36.6 ms 99.8 ms 46 11.8 ms 4.4 ms WezTerm Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 138 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 7.28s 27.5 Unicode chars 3.74s 48.4 CSI codes with few chars 5.19s 19.3 Long escape codes 4.06s 193.1 Images 1.51s 352.2 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 557 1.22 MiB 17.5ms \u0026lt; 28ms 5.27ms dense_cells 589 1.29 MiB 16.51ms \u0026lt; 25ms 4.77ms light_cells 272 1 MiB 36.29ms \u0026lt; 44ms 11.37ms scrolling 63 1 MiB 160.02ms \u0026lt; 172ms 9.72ms scrolling_bottom_region 60 1 MiB 166.9ms \u0026lt; 180ms 10.44ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 58 1 MiB 173.28ms \u0026lt; 184ms 8.06ms scrolling_fullscreen 291 1 MiB 33.98ms \u0026lt; 41ms 4.79ms scrolling_top_region 59 1 MiB 170.76ms \u0026lt; 183ms 9.39ms scrolling_top_small_region 60 1 MiB 168.98ms \u0026lt; 183ms 12.57ms unicode 328 1.06 MiB 29.99ms \u0026lt; 47ms 15.58ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 180.9 ms 8.9 ms 170.7 ms 197.8 ms 15 96.0 ms 73.2 ms Kitty Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 131 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 1.64s 122.2 Unicode chars 1.35s 134.0 CSI codes with few chars 2.34s 42.7 Long escape codes 2.37s 331.2 Images 1.85s 288.8 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev cursor_motion 292 1.22 MiB 33.82ms \u0026lt; 66ms 17.26ms dense_cells 542 1.29 MiB 18.03ms \u0026lt; 29ms 6.86ms light_cells 1519 1 MiB 6.11ms \u0026lt; 6ms 0.51ms scrolling 67 1 MiB 149.28ms \u0026lt; 161ms 7.81ms scrolling_bottom_region 70 1 MiB 142.53ms \u0026lt; 153ms 8.59ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 70 1 MiB 144.16ms \u0026lt; 154ms 7.82ms scrolling_fullscreen 995 1 MiB 9.53ms \u0026lt; 11ms 1.05ms scrolling_top_region 70 1 MiB 143.76ms \u0026lt; 152ms 6.58ms scrolling_top_small_region 69 1 MiB 144.91ms \u0026lt; 156ms 10.08ms unicode 81 1.06 MiB 127.01ms \u0026lt; 10ms 629.32ms 3) Startup Time (hyperfine, normal mode) Mean Time Std Dev Min Time Max Time Runs User CPU System CPU 221.1 ms 14.7 ms 210.2 ms 261.6 ms 11 127.4 ms 87.2 ms Kitty macOS Emulator Benchmarks Idle RAM usage: 95 MB\n1) Kitty Benchmark Results Test Time Throughput (MB/s) Only ASCII chars 1.56s 128.2 Unicode chars 1.14s 158.6 CSI codes with few chars 1.28s 78.0 Long escape codes 2.37s 330.5 Images 1.81s 295.0 2) vtebench Results Test Samples Payload Avg Time P90 Time Std Dev dense_cells 737 1 MiB 13.04ms \u0026lt; 13ms 0.36ms medium_cells 724 1.02 MiB 13.36ms \u0026lt; 17ms 2.5ms scrolling 132 1 MiB 62.88ms \u0026lt; 81ms 17.11ms scrolling_bottom_region 359 1 MiB 27.34ms \u0026lt; 33ms 5.02ms scrolling_bottom_small_region 357 1 MiB 27.51ms \u0026lt; 33ms 4.98ms scrolling_fullscreen 76 1 MiB 116.55ms \u0026lt; 119ms 1.66ms scrolling_top_region 366 1 MiB 26.84ms \u0026lt; 32ms 4.8ms scrolling_top_small_region 356 1 MiB 27.59ms \u0026lt; 33ms 5.05ms sync_medium_cells 611 1.06 MiB 15.86ms \u0026lt; 16ms 1.85ms unicode 845 1.06 MiB 11.42ms \u0026lt; 8ms 19.25ms ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/tech/terminal_emulators/","summary":"Dive into more terminals than you\u0026rsquo;ll ever need (or should probably exist at all).","title":"Terminal Emulators: A Comparison"},{"content":"Note: tori = person doing a technique\nuke = person having a technique done to them\nThere are a number of famous sayings in grappling circles, but an oft-repeated Rickson Gracie classic is “Jiu-Jitsu is perfect. It’s humans who make errors.” The meaning behind this is obvious: if a technique is not working, it is because tori is making errors, not because of a flaw in Jiu Jitsu itself. I have no intentions of arguing against this statement; I believe in it wholeheartedly. However, I also believe that this “perfect” Jiu-Jitsu does not exist in the real world, no matter how fervently we aspire to the ideal. Indeed, as long as there is a human component to grappling, there will be human error. But error comes in many forms, and I would submit that those different forms can be clearly defined, and that doing so is beneficial for understanding and rectifying them. To that end, I would propose that we separate these failures into four categories: \u0026ldquo;flubs\u0026rdquo;, technical errors, technique errors, and total failures.\nI would define \u0026ldquo;flubs\u0026rdquo; as what occurs when tori’s understanding of a technique (and underlying principles) is up to par, but they have made an error while performing it. Of the four categories, this is generally the easiest to correct, as it usually only means that tori needs more practice time. This is one of the reasons the presence of a skilled instructor is so important in early development, and why garage gyms with novices learning from instructionals rarely produce results: raw novices don\u0026rsquo;t really get to make flubs, because they don\u0026rsquo;t know the difference between good technique vs not. The influence of a coach is often needed to draw those distinctions, so that students can reach the point where they recognize their accidents. With more advanced practitioners, these types of errors tend to get ironed out with time. In a good gym, advanced ranks should have both solid theoretical knowledge and a baseline level of executional skill, as well as a drive to correct these unforced errors they commit while rolling. All that is to say: these flubs are what keep a lot of grapplers up at night and frustrated with their performance, but after a certain skill threshold mindful practice combined with patience can mostly rectify this issue.\nWhat then do we call it then when a technique fails to work even when all the pieces appear to be in order? If a technique is executed properly according to a student’s understanding and still does not work as intended, then it stands to reason that either the technique itself is flawed, or that tori’s understanding of it is. Special cases (that we\u0026rsquo;ll get to) notwithstanding, the latter is almost always case. What I would call “technical” failures, then, are what occur when tori has misconceptions about the essential details of a given technique, or demonstrates a poor grasp of grappling concepts. This can manifest itself in obvious ways, such as when a white belt attempts a scissor sweep without controlling the posting arm, or it can be more subtle, as with a brown or black belt angling their hip incorrectly during a guard pass. These sorts of errors are much more difficult to correct; with each imperfect attempt, tori is building bad habits that can take longer to relearn than they would have to learn correctly in the first place. This highlights the importance of taking charge of your own training. Certainly, it is the duty of instructors to correct their students’ technique, but it is unrealistic to expect a coach to have the time or energy to spot and correct every flawed technique one of their students might attempt. Furthermore, for advanced practicioners, many small technical failures are “invisible”, or at least difficult to see. These more subtle mistakes are corrected not by grabbing \u0026ldquo;their other left\u0026rdquo; wrist, but by small adjustments to weight distribution or posture. This can be virtually impossible for an onlooker to observe, and can often be corrected only through intensive, self-focused study. This is the type of error that advanced practitioners will spend the majority of their time working to correct, and also explains why so many high level grapplers are more enthusiastic about learning new details than they are about spending time on the newest techniques.\nNext, I would be remiss if I didn\u0026rsquo;t cover technique failures, but realistically this category is both the simplest and most contentious. Put frankly, what I\u0026rsquo;m calling \u0026ldquo;technical failures\u0026rdquo; would usually just be called \u0026ldquo;bullshit moves\u0026rdquo;. These are the things that whitebelts watch on Instagram or other short-form video platforms and terrorize other beginners 50lbs lighter than themselves with, but would never work against someone competent is who is currently both alive and awake. This topic is inherently contentious because there are always disagreements on whether or not certain moves are \u0026ldquo;bullshit\u0026rdquo; or not, but in my humble experience, if you are spending a lot of your time on techniques that others question the legitimacy of, you are either doing leglocks before ~2015 or you\u0026rsquo;re an insufferable contrarian with a severe case of misfit syndrome. For an example of a classic technical failure, enjoy this video of the infamous lugnut\nFinally, “total” failures could be defined as tori moving in ways that are not only incorrect, but outright pointless or ignorant. This is what is happening when someone (usually a newer or exhausted grappler) grabs at something with no real understanding of why they are doing so, and even worse, they often do so with no explainable goal in sight. While this is understandable in brand new students, it is also sometimes seen at slightly more advanced levels. Almost always, this is done as the result of panic or desperation brought about by extreme anxiety or discomfort that the student has failed to control. Simply put, these are “total” failures because they not only fail to benefit tori in any way, but they also stand to put potentially place uke in unnecessary danger, as even the most grizzled among us can be on occasion vicitimized by flailing limbs. People prone to these errors are the archetypal “spaz” of the gym, and often find themselves without a training partner when it comes time for sparring rounds. If you find yourself making this kind of mistake, and you are not a brand new grappler, I implore you to shift the primary focus of your training towards stopping them from occurring. Unlike the other sorts of mistakes, the solution for this has very little do with technique and is instead almost entirely mental. Focus on staying calm and making only disciplined, purposeful movements, and these “total” failures should disappear in time. Moreover, by eliminating this kind of error, your training will invariably become much more productive for both you and your training partners. Even better, moving past this stage is a major step in the transition from outsider “new guy” in an academy to becoming a more respected, well-liked training partner.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/jiujitsu/failing_techniques/","summary":"A short essay on how to frame different kinds of mistakes in grappling and how to fix them.","title":"Four Ways To Fail In Jiu Jitsu"},{"content":"I am not an AI evangelist. If you would like to read a piece about how the latest models are going to change the world or destabilize entire industries, this is probably not meant for you. What I am is a mid level software developer who has spent the last several months with an intense interest in tooling, and LLMs are the area in which developer tooling has had the loudest and fastest advancements in that timeframe. I would also like to preface this piece with something obvious: the landscape around LLM tooling changes very quickly, and what is true today may not be true for long.\nOn LLM Usage as a Developer Before I dive into explaining and comparing tools, I want to go over various examples of LLM tooling I observe in both my own and others\u0026rsquo; workflow as well as my opinions each use case, so that readers may understand where I\u0026rsquo;m coming from in terms of how I evaluate these tools.\nAutocomplete I think most developers are familiar with LLM autocomplete at this point, and for good reason: done well, it\u0026rsquo;s really nice. It isn\u0026rsquo;t a transformative, earth shattering change (indeed, we regularly hear advocates of agentic coding disparage it, mostly for not being any kind of paradigm shift), but unlike some other LLM use cases, there are virtually no downsides to using it. Even more, with a good implementation (Cursor) it is a genuine joy to use, something that is often ignored in the boardroom focused, ad-in-disguise content that tends to dominate content around LLM tooling. This was the first LLM feature a lot of devs were exposed to, and I\u0026rsquo;m glad, because if we had used early agents more, we\u0026rsquo;d all be soured on LLMs beyond repair. By no means essential, but a definite plus in my book.\nPlanning I didn\u0026rsquo;t use LLMs for planning for a long time, and I will admit that I\u0026rsquo;m kicking myself for that now. I have had friends and coworkers argue to me that quality plans can be produced without LLM assistance, and they are right - (see what I did there with the emdash?) with enough time, you can almost certainly produce better plans without an LLM than with one. However, you would also spend an enormously greater amount of time doing so, to the point that, even as someone who did not use LLM planning at all a few months ago, I would go so far as to call using some version of this the \u0026ldquo;correct\u0026rdquo; way of doing things in 2026. My personal workflow is to use the website version of an LLM when working with loose, from-100,000ft plans that don\u0026rsquo;t require code context, and the planning mode of an LLM harness when I am ready to create something more actionable. I also find it particularly helpful to ask the LLM to identify any pitfalls in the plan. Because they are oh so amiable, they always do identify issues when pressed, and while more than half of the things it frets about are nonsense, the ~30% of issues it identifies that are substantial have saved me a great deal of time. This has actually been the most transformative usage for LLMs for me, because while they can sometimes get implementation wrong, working with an LLM you can arrive at a quality, thorough plan in consistently a fraction of the time previously possible.\nAs a \u0026ldquo;Super Search\u0026rdquo; Tool This doesn\u0026rsquo;t get talked about enough, but is actually a very prime use case for LLMs in my opinion. Sending your robot butler to find examples of something in the codebase for you can work wonders when you want to make project wide (or even system wide) searches that can\u0026rsquo;t be easily translated into a query string/regexp. The amount of time/headache this can save is considerable, and not to be underestimated. It can also \u0026ldquo;understand\u0026rdquo; unfamiliar swathes of code at high speeds and summarize them, which can be another great time save (although I do encourage a healthy amount of skepticism in terms of faith in the bot\u0026rsquo;s conclusions). An underrated feature for sure, and something that is truly unique to LLMs and not just an enhanced version of an existing non-AI feature like code completion.\nAs StackOverflow 2.0 This is a common LLM use case, and that is probably because it (mostly) Just Works. It is very fast and convenient to copy and paste a slice of code and ask an LLM about it, why it is behaving a certain way, why doesn\u0026rsquo;t it work, etc. It is also the area where I most value inline, in-editor solutions as opposed to separate CLI/web tools, as switching contexts often breaks flow, which is another way it is superior to StackOverflow, as having to search the former breaks flow massively. Still, this is the first use case I have any ambivalence towards, simply because the bot sometimes gets it wrong, and there is something uniquely frustrating about being lied to by a computer that just isn\u0026rsquo;t the same as when a StackOverflow user is incorrect. We (or at least I am) are used to machines being deterministic, and one of the most important lessons to learn when working with LLMs is that they are not.\nAs a Coding Agent This is certainly the most discussed and most controversial use case for LLMs, and it is easy to see why: the results can be all over the place. The LLM can generate working code at speeds far greater than any human, massively increasing developer velocity. At the same time, output can sometimes be low quality spaghetti even when it works, even with the latest models with good harnesses. And because that code \u0026ldquo;works\u0026rdquo;, it often gets committed and PR\u0026rsquo;d. This leads to, if not an \u0026ldquo;enshittification\u0026rdquo; of the codebase, at least an \u0026ldquo;ensloppification\u0026rdquo;. With that in mind, I still think there is a lot of value to be gleaned here if the engineer develops a feel for what sort of issues and what scope of issues LLM are likely to do a passable job on, and has the discipline and pride of craftsmanship to \u0026ldquo;desloppify\u0026rdquo; the output when necessary. I am reminded of Kurt Vonnegut\u0026rsquo;s old adage dividing writers into \u0026ldquo;swoopers\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;bashers\u0026rdquo;. Swoopers vomit out a ton of text and then carefully edit the mass down into a quality finished product, while bashers fret over every line, wanting every pen stroke to be perfect the first time. I view the LLM as the ultimate swooper, and while the unfiltered output can be largely deleterious to a codebase, with some chiseling into shape it can eventually become a quality product significantly faster than if done by a solo human basher.\nAs a File System/Install Manager This is the main popular use case that I am mostly negative on. Any time I try to allow it to do this with restrictions/sandboxing, it ends up constantly prompting me for permissions, to the point that I\u0026rsquo;m tempted to just give up control and let it do its thing. The problem is, any time I\u0026rsquo;ve let it go without supervision, it almost invariably screws something up and potentially even introduces a security risk. Not to mention, even when it does work, it often has to try so many things in the process that it becomes difficult to parse what actually fixed the problem and why. The only useful mileage I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten out of using LLMs with the file system when asking it to diagnose issues, and even then it often tries to then proceed to solve the issue by taking a woodchipper to the problem. Overall, anything beyond asking a CLI tool \u0026ldquo;why isn\u0026rsquo;t this working?\u0026rdquo; is generally a no-go in my book, and God forbid you let them install anything.\nExplaining LLM Tooling/Setup Next, I would like to give a brief overview of the things that influence outcomes when using LLMs as developers use them today: the \u0026ldquo;harness\u0026rdquo;, added instructions/context, and added tools/MCP servers. Of course, the model used has arguably the biggest impact of all, but I think everyone already knows that different models have different abilities/strengths, and I do not wish to waste anyone\u0026rsquo;s time.\nHarness The \u0026ldquo;harness\u0026rdquo; for an LLM generally refers to the set environment, tools, and set of constraints that are used by an LLM. For example, one might run the same model (GPT 5.3 for instance), in Cursor, in Codex, in OpenCode, and on ChatGPT\u0026rsquo;s website, and receive a different outcome every time. This is because the model is operating in a different context under different constraints. A dead-simple example of this is that the model on ChatGPT\u0026rsquo;s website cannot view your filesystem or run commands on your computer, but the Codex CLI tool can. Before I started experimenting more with these tools, I underestimated the impact of harness on outcomes. However, now with more experience,I can say safely that, if using models of the same generation/general level of ability, changing harnesses can often have an even greater impact than switching models entirely.\nContext The added instructions/context here refer to additional project/application level instructions given to an LLM. This is decidedly the least cool part of all this, as it is essentially just additional prompt context the model reads/\u0026ldquo;knows\u0026rdquo; before it responds to the user, but it can still be quite impactful. The most well known examples of this are keeping an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md in the project root, but Cursor users may be more familiar with adding additional \u0026ldquo;cursor rules\u0026rdquo;. More recently, this has taken the form of \u0026ldquo;skills\u0026rdquo; users can install on various harness/agent applications, which in reality are usually just text files that \u0026ldquo;teach\u0026rdquo; the LLM how to do something, often by linking to other text files, which gives the skills the illusion of being much more concise and \u0026ldquo;magical\u0026rdquo; than they really are. They are also recently a major security risk/attack surface, because users are unlikely to read through the web of files that constitute a skill in its entirety. This also brings us to the first instance of LLM companies desperately attempting to build walled gardens to maintain customers/corner market share, as seemingly every tool has its unique way of doing what should be a very simple, universal thing. I.E. Anthropic wants you to use skills exclusive to Claude Code and include instructions in a file called the aforementioned CLAUDE.md, versus the more universal AGENTS.md. Still, the impact of these additions should not be underestimated, and while they might not as exciting as an MCP server that allows an agent to do something previously impossible, simply maintaining a well thought out AGENTS.md in the project can have a big impact on outcomes.\nMCP/Tools Lastly, we have MCP servers/additional tools and programs that LLMs can use to improve their capacities. There are far too many of these to list here, but the only one I\u0026rsquo;ve found truly indispensable has been the ability to use some kind of search engine, which I think is included by default in every major harness now. Something everyone \u0026ldquo;knows\u0026rdquo; about MCP servers but is underdiscussed is that they tend to massively increase context/token usage, which can grow expensive and/or risk making the model \u0026ldquo;dumber\u0026rdquo; as its context window is exhausted. In light of this, I tend to be more conservative with their use than some people might. In terms of specific examples, one of the favorites at my workplace is Playwright, which is a neat way to allow the LLM access to the browser and audit its client-side work. Recently, I have been experimenting with TideWave as an interesting option. It is created in part by Jose Valim (the creator of Elixir, the primary language I use for work ) and has a number of interesting abilities, including the capacity to connect to both the local db and local server instance and test queries/code against them. It has a separate (paid) in browser agent that allows it to interact directly with the application end to end, but just the ability to do the things I mentioned in the terminal are fairly useful thus far on their own. Additionally, unlike many MCPs, I\u0026rsquo;ve found that the additional capacity actually causes the models to use less tokens rather than more on average, a welcome change.\nModels I am going to write here primarily about Gemini, ChatGPT (Codex), and Claude. Grok, Mistral, and the various open source (or just open weight in Moonshot\u0026rsquo;s case) Chinese models surely have some use cases (recently I have been trying out Kimi K2.5, which is quite impressive), but I have found them to be generally behind those three front-runners. This section has by far the greatest potential to be rapidly out of date, so please bear that in mind as you read.\nFirst we have Claude, the talk of the dev town. For whatever reason, Claude tends to be the model that gets pointed to whenever someone makes the claim that software engineering is \u0026ldquo;done\u0026rdquo; (it has been done within the next six months for close to two years now). Does it live up to that hype? I\u0026rsquo;d say…absolutely not, but you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t let that fool you into thinking it\u0026rsquo;s anything less than excellent. Claude Opus 4.5/4.6 (the difference is minuscule in practice) are definite candidates for \u0026ldquo;best\u0026rdquo; models for agentic coding, and the difference between what they output and how they \u0026ldquo;think\u0026rdquo; compared to models from a year ago is genuinely vast, but I also maintain that the code they produce is of pretty routinely mixed quality. Claude to me embodies \u0026ldquo;LLM code\u0026rdquo;: performant, defensive, impressive in what it can achieve at superhuman speeds…but also sometimes does not compile and is frequently unmaintainable. Furthermore, Anthropic\u0026rsquo;s Opus models are by far the most token/context hungry of any I have come across. Using Google and OpenAI\u0026rsquo;s mid level \u0026ldquo;pro\u0026rdquo; plans that cost 20–25$ a month, you would have to be a heavy user, into the realm of nonsense \u0026ldquo;vibe coding\u0026rdquo; to exhaust the limits they give you (assuming you work comparatively normal hours and spend a good amount of time doing things that aren\u0026rsquo;t coding, I.E. every dev job). With Claude Code, if you use primarily Opus, it is very realistic to reach/exceed the allowed limits, making it the least economical option of the three. Still, none of this isn\u0026rsquo;t to say Claude isn\u0026rsquo;t good, because it is. Shockingly so at times. Just not nearly so much that I put stock into the rumors of our impending demise. As for the cheaper Sonnet model, it is fairly capable, and significantly faster, but I find that for anything of significant complexity it is worth it to go to Opus.\nNext I will bring up ChatGPT\u0026rsquo;s Codex, specifically the recent 5.2/5.3 models. I won\u0026rsquo;t beat around the bush: these are impressive. They come in 4 different \u0026ldquo;thinking\u0026rdquo; levels (low/medium/high/xhigh), and I have mostly used them on high, which seems to be the standard recommendation. They have similar perceived \u0026ldquo;intelligence\u0026rdquo; and code quality to Claude Opus, but are considerably faster and less context/token hungry. I have had things that Claude can\u0026rsquo;t seem to get right than Codex nails on the first try, but the reverse is also true. I cannot confidently say that one is \u0026ldquo;better\u0026rdquo; than the other, but if I had to pick one right now, it would actually be Codex, for compatibility reasons (more on that later), price, and the speed advantage over Claude Opus.\nFor Gemini, I find myself in an interesting place with it: the fast 3.0 \u0026ldquo;Flash\u0026rdquo; model for trivial/menial tasks is, for my money, the best thing on the market, but I find the the \u0026ldquo;Pro\u0026rdquo; model (even the new 3.1, which was released as I initially wrote this) lags behind the equivalent flagship Claude/Codex models in terms of code generation. However, used as a stack overflow replacement to explain code, it is my top pick, as I simply find its explanations to be consistently thorough, digestible, and generally accurate (although I emphasize: never fully trust an LLM; they all generate nonsense on occasion).\nTools/Applications: Covering this topic was the main reason I started this article, and also the one the topic on which I suspect I might have the most useful insight on for experienced developers. I do not mean to suggest that I am a great expert in this space, merely that I have spent a lot of time tinkering with various apps and evaluating their performance. Even more, most people I see with equivalent/greater experience than me I have noticed tend to skew non-dev/\u0026ldquo;vibe-coder\u0026rdquo;, and it is my intent to provide the perspective of someone who isn\u0026rsquo;t afraid to dig and handle code themselves. For the sake of keeping an already long piece from running until the end of time, I am only going to include a paragraph or two for each one that I have used, but encourage readers to download and try them for themselves.\nCLI Apps Most of the following CLI apps also have a GUI version, but I have largely stuck with the TUI implementations. I fail to see any increased value in most of their GUI versions, and find the terminal preferable in most cases.\nAider Aider is an open source CLI LLM agent, and I wanted to love it. It has all the characteristics of a project that I would like: open source, free, bring your own keys model to avoid vendor lock in, and is community driven. Unfortunately, I found that it performed very poorly for me. One of its hooks is something called \u0026ldquo;architect mode\u0026rdquo; where an agent \u0026ldquo;plans\u0026rdquo; the code for a feature and has a separate agent implement it. A feature of this mode is to allow the user to select two different models for each role, ostensibly as a cost saving measure. However, the \u0026ldquo;architect\u0026rdquo; does not so much help the user plan so much as it prepares an entire diff worth of code that the user then accepts/refuses, which the implementing agent then applies as a patch. I struggle to understand the utility of this. It isn\u0026rsquo;t really \u0026ldquo;planning\u0026rdquo; in any meaningful sense, and while it is nice enough not to have the file written to without permission, it\u0026rsquo;s also easy to roll back changes with git or other GUI tools in other harnesses. Add that to the fact that I found the resultant code quality to be easily among the worst of the harnesses I\u0026rsquo;ve used, and I cannot recommend it.\nDroid Droid is a paid harness by Factory.ai that I genuinely cannot determine the intended audience of. I was initially enticed to try it out by impressive results on TerminalBench, but the experience did little besides reinforce to me that benchmarks are of extremely limited utility for LLMs in the real world. The output I got from it was…fine, but the developer experience was downright abysmal compared to others, and required payment information to use at all, even if I had keys from an actual model provider. I am generally a proponent of open source solutions vs closed ones, but I also understand that not everyone shares my zeal, and that sometimes the closed source product is simply better to the point that there is no use grinding an ideological axe in denial. That is not the case here. From where I stand, it is a paid, closed source product that is massively worse than free and open source alternatives. Needless to say, I do not recommend it at all.\nGemini CLI Not bad, but mediocre. This tends to get better output out of Gemini than Cursor/Zed (both of which it is oddly finicky with), but I get better results out of it with OpenCode, and it lags behind Codex, OpenCode, and Claude Code in virtually every way. It very distinctly gives the impression that Google is giving it far less love than its competitors are giving their tools, and while the future of Gemini in general looks bright, I cannot say the same for Gemini CLI. The fact that it is \u0026ldquo;free\u0026rdquo; and allows a few free requests per day is its primary redeeming feature.\nCodex This is the first CLI tool that I\u0026rsquo;ll cover that I would call \u0026ldquo;good\u0026rdquo;. It isn\u0026rsquo;t quite as feature rich as Claude Code or OpenCode, but the output it gets out of Codex models is substantially better than what I receive through most other harnesses. It also utilizes tool calls well. If there is a criticism to be had of it, it is that it mostly feels like a Claude Code ripoff, and lags behind it slightly in terms of both UI/UX and features. It isn\u0026rsquo;t my favorite, but I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be eager to urge someone to try something else if they enjoyed Codex, which is not what I would say for Aider, Droid, or Gemini CLI.\nClaude Code This is what most people think of when they discuss CLI coding harnesses. Once again, Anthropic\u0026rsquo;s offering is perennially painted as a lurking demon waiting to take all of our jobs…when in reality it is just an extremely solid LLM harness. While the idea that \u0026ldquo;Claude Code\u0026rdquo; can replace a solid developer may be misguided, that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean it should be dismissed as a tool. Firstly, the planning mode is fantastic, and showed me just how good and useful planning with LLMs can be. Beyond that, the UX is good, easily the best of any tools I have covered in this piece thus far. The code output is arguably the best it is possible to get out of an LLM at this time, and Claude with Claude Code is one of only two combinations (GPT Codex + OpenCode being the other) where I don\u0026rsquo;t absolutely cringe when thinking of using it as an agent to interact with the filesystem rather than just ask code questions/as a code generation bot. Indeed, it is a good product, as much as I hate to admit it (all of the major Western LLM providers are evil, but Anthropic seems uniquely committed to seeking a walled garden and even regulatory capture).\nOpenCode This has quickly become my favorite LLM harness. It has everything that I listed to love with Aider, but unlike Aider it all actually works how I want it to. It uses separate \u0026ldquo;agents\u0026rdquo; for a planning mode and a build mode, and they actually do what each of their names suggests. It also comes bundled with two subagents, one for \u0026ldquo;general\u0026rdquo; and one called \u0026ldquo;explore\u0026rdquo; that users can invoke both while the main agents work or independently. The website also provides excellent documentation on writing your own agents/subagents, something other harness providers tend to obscure at least somewhat. The aforementioned planning mode tends to output slightly higher level plans than Claude Code\u0026rsquo;s, but I find them to be of similar quality. Indeed, OpenCode having a solid planning feature unlike Codex is the biggest reason I don\u0026rsquo;t touch Codex anymore, and just use OpenAI models through OpenCode when I want to use them. Above all, whatever their team has done with the harness to direct it, they have done great work, as the code quality when using OpenAI models is arguably better than via their own Codex harness, and Gemini\u0026rsquo;s is absolutely better than with Gemini CLI. As a bonus, it\u0026rsquo;s also extremely easy to switch models, and the project is large enough that it sometimes gets to offer temporarily free models for promotion. The only negative I\u0026rsquo;ve found for this tool is that Anthropic and Google have started banning people from using their Claude/Gemini subscriptions with it, another frustrating example of LLM providers attempting to establish walled gardens. It is to OpenAI\u0026rsquo;s credit that they have not gone down that path, allowing use of ChatGPT Pro plans with third party apps like OpenCode, and Sam Altman has even expressed publicly (for whatever good that does) that they do not intend to. If not for Anthropic and Google\u0026rsquo;s obnoxious attempts at vendor lock in, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even consider another CLI LLM tool at this time, but as it stands Anthropic\u0026rsquo;s models and harness are good enough that Claude Code must also be in the conversation. Overall though, OpenCode has an attractive design, incredibly snappy response time, and excellent developer experience. Furthermore, Codex models through OpenCode have given me both the most enjoyable time and the best results I\u0026rsquo;ve had working with LLMs to date.\nGUI Apps Cursor I question how much time to spend on Cursor because so many people are already familiar with it. Regardless, I feel that I must highlight its signature \u0026ldquo;tab\u0026rdquo; autocomplete feature. Simply put, it is best in class, and if that is your primary LLM use case, I recommend sticking with Cursor. I don\u0026rsquo;t use Cursor anymore, but it is the one thing I miss. Zed\u0026rsquo;s version is solid, and open source tools integrating fast models like Gemini Flash or Mistral\u0026rsquo;s Codestral for autocomplete in other editors are…serviceable, but frankly Cursor stands head and shoulders above in this area. In other ways, I don\u0026rsquo;t think Cursor is particularly good, and mostly coasts on the strength of the above functionality and VS Code\u0026rsquo;s large install base of familiar users. Its harness/agent I find to be on the weaker side, and while Cursor offers more model flexibility with a subscription than others, it also offers less bang for your buck in terms of model usage when using the more powerful models compared Google, Anthropic, or OpenAIs\u0026rsquo; premium plans. Cursor also has a number of features like its \u0026ldquo;Bug Bot\u0026rdquo; PR review system and native planning mode that are, while not my favorite ways of accomplishing what they do, make it an attractive option if you absolutely must use one tool and no others.\nAntigravity All I have to say about Antigravity is thus: whose idea was this? It is the picked over guts of Windsurf reanimated as a Gemini advert vehicle by Google\u0026rsquo;s most questionable product directors. Are we meant to find that appealing? The only appreciable utility I\u0026rsquo;ve seen for this application is using it to finesse free trial credits for LLMs, usually Gemini or (funnily enough) Claude. It is a soulless VS Code fork with an unjustified existence, and I cannot fathom why one might choose it over Cursor.\nVSCode + Extensions (Copilot, Roo Code, Cline) My experiences with Copilot haven\u0026rsquo;t been terribly many, but they have been terribly negative. Almost uselessly bad autocomplete, and maybe the worst agent harness I\u0026rsquo;ve encountered in terms of results. I cannot imagine how/why this has any traction beyond Microsoft forcing it through sheer willingness to burn good will with their massive install base, as I certainly don\u0026rsquo;t see it as having any real merit compared to other options. There are also Cline and Roo Code, which I have not used, but (Cline particularly, which can also be added to other editors) seem to have a solid handful of fans. They are frequently compared to Aider however, and given how relatively poor my experience was with Aider, that does not make me overly eager to try them. Still, they may be something worth considering if Cursor ever alters its business model towards something unpalatable but users still crave the familiar VS Code environment.\nZed Zed is a newer, Rust-based text editor that positions itself as a Cursor/VS Code alternative. I am generally a fan of it as a text editor over VS Code/Cursor (the speed gap is immediately noticeable), but this piece is more about LLM features so I\u0026rsquo;ll stick with that. The Zed team worked with the Claude and Gemini teams to pioneer something called Agent Communication Protocol (ACP) to let users use a version of the model\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;native\u0026rdquo; harness (I.E. Claude Code for Claude models) within the confines of an editor. While it is possible to use models on Zed without ACP through Zed\u0026rsquo;s own agent, the results for me have not been particularly good (worse than Cursor), while with ACP the results are very nearly as good as they are through the corresponding CLI harness (although more painful to set up external tools/additional MCP servers with). It also has the second best tab/predictive complete next to Cursor. Altogether, a very worthy consideration, especially since the ACP integration allows you to utilize external provider subscriptions from within your text editor (if that is preferred).\nGoose Goose is another free and open source tool, this time coming from Block, who were in the news somewhat recently for mass layoffs (never a good sign for a tool moving forward). While Goose does have a CLI version, I elected to use the GUI tool here, as some of the features warrant a GUI tool more in my opinion than several others, and the GUI version can be managed by brew rather than curl on my macbook. Goose\u0026rsquo;s killer feature is something called \u0026ldquo;recipes\u0026rdquo;, wherein users can define preexisting sets of LLM instructions complete with optional params, effectively making them somewhere between redeployable agents and scripts for LLMs. Recipes can be created from scratch, or the user can have the agent build a recipe based on the current session, if the session turns out to be something likely to need repeating in the future. If this sounds suspiciously similar to \u0026ldquo;skills\u0026rdquo; in with other agents/harnesses, that is because they are. Still, they aren\u0026rsquo;t quite the same thing, as recipes follow and predefined formula and can do helpful things like generate a form based on the recipe and take a defined set of parameters, rather than just sending everything to the model in a free text prompt. You can also schedule recipes to be executed at regular intervals like cron jobs, something which could be useful but I also worry could be catastrophically dangerous depending on what the agent is given access to. Under the hood, these recipes are just YAML files the agent has some special instructions on how to handle, but the idea and UI for interacting with it are interesting. It is also one of the more unique tools I\u0026rsquo;ve covered here. With most of the CLI apps, once you\u0026rsquo;ve used one, you can very quickly learn any of the others. Likewise, the gap between VSCode, Cursor, and even Zed is pretty easily bridgeable. Goose on the other hand marches to the beat of its own drum, and while I can\u0026rsquo;t immediately fault any of its choices, I did stumble when using it for the first time. It is also a little less polished than some other choices; The available models for configuration are not as quick to update as OpenCode or the first party apps, and there are a few small imperfections in the UI. Worse, the agent failed to create a recipe based on my session during my first use, and I had to write it by hand, partially defeating the purpose. Most damning of all however is that in three tries I never really got the program to save and execute my recipe with success, even after referencing the docs multiple times. There are good ideas here, but the current state of the execution and parent company do not leave me optimistic about the product\u0026rsquo;s future.\nClosing Even after all of that, the preceding section was by no means an exhaustive list. I didn\u0026rsquo;t touch on any of the myriad Neovim plugins (mainly because I am not a Neovim user), nor did I cover any of the existing Emacs packages (because there just aren\u0026rsquo;t that many of us weirdos). With that in mind, it is worth noting that in the face of all of these options, there still exists a desire with companies (spoken or otherwise) to simply pay one monolithic subscription and be done with it. I get it: managers and finance people don\u0026rsquo;t want to answer 200 emails from developers asking for permission/funds to try yet another new LLM tool. But I question the wisdom of that in regard to LLM tooling. If devs simply start Cursor/Claude Code/Copilot/whatever every day, they\u0026rsquo;ll be missing out on a lot of power and innovation that is out there, and changing fast. Conversely, this space moves at such a speed that you could easily spend all of your time exploring it rather than getting any work done, which is an obvious pitfall to avoid as well. I am not sure how best to strike a balance between these two poles, but I do feel confident that a balance should be struck for best results.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/tech/llm_tooling_for_devs/","summary":"An examination of available tools and options for leveraging LLMs as a software developer in 2026","title":"Developer Tooling With LLMs "},{"content":"Note: I am not going to write about the venue/location in San Jose, as it hasn’t changed in four years. If you are interested in my takes on that, they can be read here:\nGenesis X\nGenesis X2\nEvent Over the weekend I participated and competed in Genesis X3, the 12th (not 13th) installation in the legendary series. Overall, I feel that this was the second best Genesis I have attended, after last year’s installment. While this Genesis was by no means bad (indeed, it was on the whole better than the first two I attended), I must say that it did have some slight issues compared to last year’s that prevent me calling it a “basically perfect” supermajor as I did for that one.\nMost prominently, the top 8 staging/production was, in my humble opinion, the worst it has been for Genesis since COVID lockdowns ended. For my first Genesis, top 8 was done in a separate room of the venue, and for my second and third, at the illustrious Civic Center. Having top 8 on the same stage as used for the stream the first two days was\u0026hellip;fine, but it lacked the sense of gravitas and ceremony that past years had done such a good job of imbuing the bracket with. Combined with the severe audio issues in the venue (production was completely inaudible at the back of the seating area where I was for top 8), and the top 8 just felt less important than it did in the past. Last year, sitting down in a theater and watching the Melee opening start the show felt genuinely magical, but this year, despite an even crazier top 8 line up, the whole thing felt like just another tournament. It was almost hard as as spectator to remember that this was Genesis, which is a shame, because if any event has earned a little pomp and circumstance, it’s this one.\nSecondly, it would be remiss not to mention the stream situation, for both good and bad. As most readers will be aware, Genesis X3 only had one stream. What less tapped in readers may not know is the reason for this, which essentially boils down to money. There was a widely leaked breakdown of internet venue costs for the weekend, and, assuming it was accurate, it is immediately clear why there was only one stream. Venue internet costs (and venue costs in general) have exploded to wildly unsustainable heights, and an event that I’m guessing already runs at a loss cannot shell out untold tens of thousands of extra dollars for a bunch of side streams. To the event’s credit, they did the best job they possibly could in terms of mitigating this: every R2 pools set was recorded, and every top 64 pools set had a designated volunteer/staff member making sure the recording went off without a hitch. Furthermore, they did their best at facilitating community run “IRL” streams (shoutouts to dang3r) where people with a phone, a 5G connection, and an intense passion for the community streamed live sets so that the Melee faithful who couldn’t be there could tune in. Still, even all of that pales in comparison to the high production value side and quad streams that we’ve grown accustomed to, and generates a difficult quandary that brings my “reasons not to envy TOs” count to 1,233,483: Everyone loves having big supermajors in large venues in major cities, but the prices for such places are so extreme that we simply cannot have the same level of amenities there we can in smaller locales. I genuinely don’t know how to solve this problem. Many community leaders have hypothesized that the future lies with regionals rather than big convention center majors, but I cannot help but feel that such a move represents a sad regression (and I say this as the world’s #2 MW regional enjoyer, after Zamu). I do not have a solution for this, and so cannot really fault Genesis for it, but it did feel bad that Genesis had lesser stream footprint than a lot of random regionals.\nLastly, I should bring up the change in bracket in the way pools/bracket was scheduled. I did not care for the change in the way pools were scheduled this tournament, but will concede that a good portion of that could be chalked up to personal taste. For the past couple of years, R1 pools ran straight into R2 pools, and that was no longer the case with this year. Plenty of people had R1 pools Friday, R2 pools Saturday morning/afternoon, and then T64 in the evening. I really don’t like breaking things up that much because it requires competitors to be in “tournament mode” almost the entire weekend, and for my personal competitive style I don’t care for it because it gives me less of an opportunity to get in the zone. Still, I acknowledge this is a smaller complaint others might not share, and was fortunate at least in that my R2 pools at least did directly feed into T64.\nIn terms of positives, the bracket ran fantastically. In typical Genesis fashion, an army of staff and volunteers collaborated to run pools with a characteristic smoothness and timeliness that most events can only dream of. I also have to give Genesis credit for how long the setups stayed out. People were gaming until after the final top 8 finished, and I am oh so pleased that we were able to do so. To the organizers than enabled that to happen: Thank you. I still unreservedly recommend Genesis to any and all players considering travelling, and consider it the Mecca of the Melee community: If you play the game, make sure you go at least once in your life.\nBracket As for the bracket itself\u0026hellip;where to even begin? Brackets of this scope and magnitude almost require an entirely separate piece to do justice to, not just because of the size but because there are so many highlights. The three most obvious pieces are of course Cody’s unbelievable loser’s run, Zain’s placing (17th! When does the #1 player in the world get 17th???), and RapM’s monster performance. However, everyone is already Discoursing about the first one, I don’t want to beat my GOAT while he’s down for the second one (he should go to locals as community service though, at least in my opinion), and I’m sure Walt will pay his mortgage on the back of the third, so I’d like to instead focus on other bracket happenings. Firstly, I should mention Dial M’s incredible run, beating Gahtzu, Ossify(!), myself, and Daniel en route to an excellent 17th place finish, losing only to mid tier exterminator Salt and the mighty Krudo. The aforementioned Daniel also had a good run to 25th, beating Kevbot and Zasa, and quietly cementing his position as a heavy hitter in the currrent Melee landscape. Long time killer Falco Kacey also had a very solid run, beating Juicebox, S2J, and Khryke to get 17th. That none of those wins particularly surprise me should speak volumes to her perceived skill level by knowers in the community, as my opinion of that trio of foes could scarcely be higher. After his upset by Dial M, Ossify also had what would have been the loser’s run of the event if not for Cody’s history-making, carving his way through Vegas Matt, Aura, Preeminent, Swift, and Spark before finally losing to Joshman while hitting some of the craziest sequences ever put together on stage. Several great players also had their loser’s run prematurely ended in the great Cody Schwab extinction event, and honestly, my heart goes out to them. Not just Zain and Hbox, but Inky, Ginger, and SDJ could all have gone on to do big things otherwise.\nPersonal As for my tournament experience at Genesis this year, it was a bit of a mixed bag. It was wonderful to see all the good friends that I did, but at the same time I felt the absences of some familiar faces pretty heavily. I placed to seed, beating some players that I respect a great deal, but at the same time did not feel that I played well and lost to two teenagers playing mid tiers, a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I had a great deal of fun playing doubles, but ultimately did not place well. I am ambivalent, but I suppose that is better than I have been after a good number of my runs. All that being said, my bracket path seemed to be almost handcrafted to be “Dillon’s personal hell”. After my first couple of pools matches, my path was Puff, Falcon (thank goodness), young mid tier player, two extremely powerful contraption wielders, and finally another young mid tier player. And then, had I won that, I would have received a mid tier contraption wielder. I must truly be God’s strongest soldier, for He is certainly handing me his hardest battles.\nFor round one pools, my first two sets were against spacie players called Veil and ke$ha nightcore. They were very pleasant people and I enjoyed meeting them, but I recall little about the content of the sets themselves and will not write about them here. My final set of R1 pools was against the IL Puff player Rocks, who I had the pleasure of playing on stream. I felt pretty good about the first game; somewhat nervy and stitled, but I was able to find what was working and establish a rythym pretty early on apply my game. Howver, after I got hit with a roll in rest game two I started to really get nervous and fell apart a bit. I knew from early on that he was swinging for the fences (tons of pounds, fsmashes, and rest attempts) and knew what I needed to do to deal with it (mostly spacing down tilt and avoid unneccessary risks), but I got rattled when one finally worked. You can watch the set and see me do a ton of unneccessary platform movement to try and stall and get myself back in the groove (which, amusingly a couple of twitch chatters called sick desepite being probably the lamest thing I did all tournament in terms of intent). It all culminated in me doing a really terrible recovery on my third stock and basically throwing it away due to not thinking clearly. I still ended up winning the game, but it was rough gameplay after that rest and I can’t say I was proud of it.\nFor my first set of R2 pools, I played the very good Falcon Alberto, who was really the only match of the weekend I got to warmup/prepare for (shoutout PicanteThought). Unfortunately, it was also a strong opponent as my first set of the day which is something I’ve always struggled with, and while I did manage to take it 3-0, there were a lot of nervous drops that didn’t really need to occur. Watching the first game, I counted four nervous mistakes in the first stock alone, and while my gameplan was still generally strong, I could have been so much bettera bout closing out stocks/extending punishes throughout the set. Game two in particular I did not have a lot of right to win, and largely only won because Alberto had two big dropped punishes last stock. Indeed, I think he also had a pretty significant number of drops in this set in general, and I’d love to run it back sometime when we’re both a little more primed. PPMD commented this set with DarkGenex and pointed out that I was relying too much on nair to edgeguard, and recommended that I opt for fair/bair instead, and while I generally agree with him, I’ll clarify for any viewers that I have a pretty fleshed out flowchart for Falcon edgeguards that I just did a really poor job adhering to due to nerves. The super high up Bs (where I cannot meet him at the crest) I generally mean to recombo with soft uair before he lands, and the ones where I can reach him at the top I do the fair/bair (usually bair) that PPMD recommends. I was simply too nervous/unconfident in a lot of spots to go for the soft uair extensions and was trying to freestyle a bandaid solution with nair, to mixed results.\nFor my next set I played RapM, who was the talk of the town during the weekend even before his colossal win over Zain. Probably the biggest thing that struck me about this set was how familiar it all felt. I’ve played a ton of good Luigis in my day (Eddy Mexico, Mad Tyro, Abate, Misfire, Goshard, and RapM and Jah Ridin in friendlies) and while several people warned me before the set about how Rap would be just COMPLETELY different\u0026hellip;that wasn’t my experience at all. He’s not somehow playing a different character, nor is he introducing a ton of novel tech; he’s just really, really good. He was almost exactly what I expected, but I just wasn’t anywhere near precise enough to get the job done. My gameplan worked great; when I did the things I know to be strong vs Luigi, and didn’t mess up, things went very well for me. When I failed to adhere to it, or made mistakes, I was punished extremely hard, as I would expect of a player of RapM’s caliber. I did have one freestyled edgeguard with repeated jabs that I want to explore more for the future, but other than that my main takeaways from the set weren’t the bewildered sense of awe that a lot of people seem to have, but rather “this guy is good and I need to refresh/clean it up vs Luigi”. In a lot of ways, I find what he does more impressive than doing a bunch of new/novel stuff, because while excellence may not make headlines the way novelty does, it’s what I’d choose if I could pick one for myself any day of the week. As a funny little aside, I will also make a ridiculous sounding john here and say that getting glasses actually nerfed me for this set. I got glasses for the first time in my life about a month ago (I hate them), and I’ve had to learn all of the little microspacings in Melee again through a very literally different lens. I hadn’t played against a Luigi since I got them, and it showed in my juggling, where I usually feel extremely strong but couldn’t quite nail down the spacing. I know how absurd that all sounds (“seeing better makes me worse”), and I’d never claim that caused me to lose, but I swear I’m good at the juggle and just need to get some time in vs Luigi while wearing them.\nAfter that I played Zealot in loser’s bracket, someone I think is extremely good and was not happy to see in my path. He was upset 3-0 by fellow Marth player Aerius, but at the time I wasn’t aware how that set went down and merely saw a very tough opponent waiting for me in my T64 qualifier match. The first two games of this set was mostly characterized by me going down in each game thanks to execution slop giving away openings, and then getting carried by punish to make the comeback. Indeed, game one I got one of the most BS Marth combos I’ve ever done (it was something to the tune of dash attack into up tiltx4 into tipper) to put me back in it after going down three stocks to one. Game three was the reverse, with me feeling in the driver’s seat the whole game before getting clutched on by a great sequence from Zealot. Game four I completely fell to pieces and gave into nerves after failing to edgeguard Zealot’s first stock, nearly getting four stocked on FD, freaking out so badly as to lose control of my character and start full hopping and swinging in the wrong direction. Fortunately, I was able to center myself in between games and recover my composure, and then win game 5 in relatively comfortable fashion. It was far from the cleanest play in the world, but I was proud that I was able to regain my footing after such a disastrous game four, and in tournament I think it’s sometimes important to consider mental successes as much as technical ones.\nNext I played ember, a Sheik from the Northeast who I’ve played a decent bit on unranked who I knew would also be a tough opponent. I actually thought I was playing Dacky until just before this set (who was seeded to beat her), but was instead surprised when the match was called. I wasn’t shocked at the outcome; like I said, I knew Ember was good, but at the same time it’s always a little rough to get opponent whiplash at the last second. Still, I did a reasonably good job of not letting that bother me. This set was interesting in that I had a pretty solid idea of how I wanted to play it from the get-go, but I don’t like how I’ve come to play against this style of Sheik. Namely, Sheiks that are very conservative and do not mind being cornered because their neutral is more focused on finding CC counterhit opportunities than playing the undershoot/overshoot game. I’ve found that an extremely patient style holding space and down tilting works well (and indeed, when I go to a more dash dance heavy style it typically doesn’t work great for me, as they never really bite and I give up space), but it’s honestly a pretty lame and boring way of playing the game, and I wish I could figure out a better one. I did have a very clutch combo to make a comeback win during game 3 after taking her jump last stock (FINALLY getting some mileage out of the FD counterpick, after feeling that I had completely failed to make use of it all game), so it wasn’t all bad, but I need to spend more time playing Sheiks like her and Zanya (and Holiday\u0026hellip;miss your Sheik brother) to figure out a more proactive way to generate offense. I also should acknowledge that, however much Melee is a skill based game in which chance matters relatively little, it is true that sometimes all the cards just come up one way or the other, which is what I feel happened game four of this set. I didn’t do anything particularly good or interesting, but still managed to up by a huge margin because almost every bounce of the metaphorical ball just happened to favor me. I think a lot of people tend to delude themselves into thinking they had mentally broken their opponent or had some kind of stroke of genius when they go up that much, but for the sake of growth (and humility) it’s important to recognize when that is not at all what happened.\nLastly, I played Dial M, the young DK main from Colorado. I am going to refrain from commenting too much on my opponent for this set, as he is a young child, and I don’t really feel comfortable analyzing him/his play publicly as a result. As for the set itself, it was for me overwhelmingly about winning game one by much more than I deserved (he essentially threw an entire stock away at sub-30 percent) and then getting tilted into oblivion by an extremely loud and invested crowd. I think me going into depth about the intensity of my hostility towards the observers or how much I despise melee crowd culture would just be beating a dead horse, and maybe even get me into trouble, so I am only going to say that the set convinced to invest in another pair of active noise cancelling (ANC) headphones after switching to normal ones after my old ANC ones broke.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/genesis_x3/","summary":"","title":"Genesis X3"},{"content":"Event This is my writeup for Supernova 2025. This is going to be shorter than most of my major writeups (although longer than most other peoples’), because I was only there for one day. I had such an extremely bad time, performed less than ideally, and had so many external stressors going into the event that when I found out I could move my flight for less than 15 dollars, I didn’t hesitate.\nFirstly, a small bit of background on me and the series itself. I attended Smashcon 2019 as my first out of region major as a “good” player. I got 33rd, beating someone who would be top 100 that year, and many people considered it my first “breakout” type performance, even though I think I only actually made one upset. Despite this, I considered it a very weak tournament. Getting friendlies setups was very challenging during Friday and most of Saturday, and they took away all the setups before Sunday morning to force everyone to watch top 8. I understand the demographic for Supernova is much more casual than some Melee-focused majors, but for me, it was one of the worst major experiences I’d ever had, and I said that I wouldn’t go back. However, I figured that, after 6 years and a global pandemic, maybe things had gotten better. And after all, it was going to be the biggest bracket ever. Didn’t I want to be a part of that? And so I went.\nI was a fool. I will not go back, and this is the first tournament writeup I’ve done where my primary message to readers is to please prioritize other events over Supernova in the future. While the issues are fixable, at some point it becomes a matter of “fool me once, shame on you”, but fool me twice…\nFirstly, the scheduling. The scheduling for Supernova was unacceptable, bordering on unforgivable. Much ado has been made about the way doubles was handled, and rightly so. If you’ve been living under a rock, know that Supernova held doubles on THURSDAY, something completely unprecedented for a Melee major. While this I think was generally a bad thing, it would have been understandable had Supernova released schedules before MONDAY the week of the event. I don’t think I need to elaborate on why this is awful, and in place of doing so I encourage any readers to look at the number of DQs and level 9 CPUs there were in the doubles bracket. It goes deeper, however; there was a wave of pools on Friday that began at 7pm and then had their wave 2 at 9pm. I finished my wave two pool at almost exactly 11pm, something that should never be the case in a tournament schedule, and I was hardly the only one sore about it. Maybe I’m spoiled, but I think we can do better than playing r2 pools matches at nearly midnight.\nSecondly, the actual running of the event left much to be desired. There were inadequate volunteers, and so many of the pool captains were either very new or incompetent, and either way undersupervised. My good friend 12YOWeaboo (yes, that’s his real tag) had an unbelievable incident with his pool that culminated in the most egregious, pointless, and unfair DQ I have ever seen. I arrived with him at his pool 10 minutes early, and we both stood close enough to physically touch the table on which the pool was being run. As matches were being called, we noticed that he had not been called yet, but this hardly seemed out of the ordinary; he was a 2 seed in the pool, and so had a bye round one. Eventually, the match that he played the winner of was called, and he told the pool captain “Hey I’m 12YOWeaboo and I play the winner of that match” only to be told “hey no you don’t you’re actually DQ’d.” We were both gobsmacked. Not only was he where he was supposed to be better than on time, his name was never called, and then they single DQ’d him from bracket, a misstep in and of itself. Even more, the match he was waiting on HADN’T EVEN STARTED YET, so there was no actual reason to DQ him. It turned out that the pool captain had written something else on the pool sheet that was not his tag, but in truth it barely mattered; the pool captain was so quiet that even if he had been shouting the right name, we never would have heard him. Regardless, my friend was then railroaded into playing his loser’s round one match, after which it was too late to fix anything. He took time off work, paid for a hotel, and drove over 7 hours alone only to be the victim of the worst officiating I have ever seen. Not only this, but I heard at least one similar story on the Melee side. One instance of this would have been more than enough on its own to lambaste the event, but knowing that there were multiple, it becomes simply awful.\nLastly, I want to include a bit of preempting any excuse-making for Supernova in this. I have heard many people use the argument “But it was the biggest tournament ever! There are bound to be some issues”. To which I say: I. Don’t. Care. If Supernova wants to be the World Cup, the Superbowl, whatever, it should be held to the highest standards possible. If Melee brackets can’t have good organizing when they’re artificially inflated in size to break records, then we should be content with ~1500ish being the biggest they get these days. It is absolutely unacceptable to me (and should be to you) that the experience be soured for the diehard faithful for the sake of arbitrary number chasing.\nPersonal Section I was incredibly stressed and upset going into Supernova, coming off an illness and wondering until the Tuesday before the event if I’d even be well enough to attend. I have begun wearing a fitness tracking device in the last handful of months, and it reported that I had more severe stress than any other time since I started wearing it for several days in a row. Even still, I swept my r1 pool as basically every strong player did, and going into round 2 I felt okay. I warmed up with Cliche to play a Falco gauntlet and even remarked to him that although I wasn’t playing great, I felt optimistic.\nMy first set in R2 was against SadSack, a TX Falco player. I played very well in terms of punish game this set, and while my movement left some to be desired, I ultimately left feeling very positive about the rest of my run. It was a very dominant 3-0 in which I felt that I outplayed my opponent, had a bit of a skill gap, and most of the coin flips went my way.\nMy next set was against JohnLawless, who was in this position partially as a result of Snap DQing. Truthfully, that didn’t really matter to me, as I felt good about playing against either Snap or John, but knew him to be a strong player regardless. Unfortunately, I began having an issue with my headphone setup before this set, and eventually ended up not being able to use it for the rest of the event. For anyone that knows me, you know that is a HUGE deal for me. My audio setup is essential to getting into what people jokingly call a “mind palace”, and I feel raw and exposed without it. This was even more frustrating because it was the third time in as many years that this has happened to me at a major, and I have now resolved to bring 2 setups in the future. Regardless, while I certainly played quite a bit worse in this set than the previous one, I was able to stay locked in enough to take it 3-0. This was also helped by the fact that this set didn’t have much of an audience and I didn’t have to deal with a lot of external noise. In terms of gameplay, I won the first game very comfortably, but games two and three were fairly close, with John using the expanded space of Dreamland to curtail my punishes very well. Had I been playing as well as I had the previous set, I think this would have been less meaningful as I could have adapted by going for more techchases (and hitting them), but I got it done regardless.\nNext, I played Ginger, who would over the next two days come to be known as the man of the weekend. This set ended up as a nailbiter game 5 last stock with Ginger at 200 and me at 150, and ultimately he came out the victor. My key takeaway from this set was that Ginger’s general gameplans are so rock solid that it allows him to almost simulate playing well even when he isn’t. I don’t think either of us played particularly well or poorly in this set (until the end), but the way he had a rehearsed, quality answer to seemingly every situation was fantastic. He wasn’t perfect; he had pretty noticeable patterns vs my invincibility, and was not very clean off the ledge. However, I failed to punish these things, so I cannot with any real confidence or authority call them “mistakes”. He also struck to FD which was…weird. I think this may have been a player to player read on me being too nervous in tournament to hit the chaingrab, and he was right, but ultimately I think the stage still offers so much for Marth that it isn’t a great strike. I lost game one and then went back and won game two, and had I not been too nervous to punish well I think I would have won both very comfortably. I then got off to a big lead on the back of a couple of reads game three on DL, and managed to hang onto it long enough to take that game as well. Ginger did similar on YS game four, although with a significantly wider margin of victory than I managed. Game five started out very well for me, but then Ginger took control until it was two stocks to one, near 0 damage each. I hit a huge powershield laser-\u0026gt;tipper fsmash to kill him near 0, evening the game…and then completely fell apart. I won’t pretend like he played super clean in the last stock game five situation either, but the number of times I had an opportunity to close and choked or dropped my punish was unforgivable. I watched him shorten to ledge probably five times that stock, and never once challenged in a meaningful way. I ended up whiffing a big move and getting down tilted, and that was the set. There was certainly more to take from the set; I got down smash edgeguarded probably a dozen times without a single good tech, for instance. However, at the end of the day, when it mattered, he was the better man. I do think I could have played cleaner had my audio equipment not gone kaput, but it is ultimately on me to show up with working hardware. It also mattered less here than it might have, because the onlookers were very respectful, which I greatly appreciate.\nAfter that Ginger set, I was about as sad as I’ve ever been following a loss. I don’t know if it was just how close the set was, the amount of stress I had going into the event, angst about my audio equipment, or what, but I haven’t been that dejected over Melee in a solid three years. I was so crestfallen that when I sat down to play Daniel, I began warming up on the wrong setup for a solid minute without even realizing what I was doing, until Daniel had to ask me and put me on the right one. In short, I’m absolutely making excuses for my performance in this set, but gun to my head I’d say I lost to Daniel before the first game even began. Add in the general annoyance factor of box Yoshi, and his friends shouting “YUMMY!” every time he did neutral B, and I was far too tilted to function. I honestly do not remember much about the set itself. I wasn’t “there” so to speak, and I hate saying that because there’s no way to do so without taking away from Daniel. He had a great run and I wish him only the best. Ultimately, I am ashamed of this. Someone who mentally quits is not the kind of person that I want to be, but it was the kind of person I was Friday, and I have to live with that.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/supernova_2025/","summary":"","title":"Supernova 2025"},{"content":"Event Tipped Off 16 was a tournament running from June 7-8th in Atlanta, GA at the Atlanta Zoo. On the whole, I think Tipped Off was one of the strongest events I’ve been to in the last year and a half, and quite possibly the strongest I’ve attended since Riptide 2023.\nFor positives, I think that we must first talk about the zoo. I am very much a “travel the world and sit in the convention center to play Melee” kind of competitor. I know what I like. I know why I go to tournaments; to play Super Smash Brothers Melee For the Nintendo Gamecube. I have been to multiple Riptides and never set foot in the water park. That being said, I had to go the zoo, and had a great time doing so. Being able to look out from the playing area and see elephants and giraffes was also a trip in the best of ways, and it would be neat if more events sought novel venues like this to add a bit of memorable spice to the package. I think it would generate some of the good kind of FOMO in terms of getting people to come out, and it certainly enhanced the experience for everyone I talked to about it in this case.\nNextly, the event deserves props for the incredible amount of streaming it did. I knew there would be a main and quad stream, but when I realized I had heard not quad (singular) but quads (plural) while setting up I nearly did a double take. There really isn’t much to say about that besides acknowledging that a bar has been raised, and while other events should necessarily be detracted from for lacking this level of streaming, TO should be lauded for putting together the logistics and resources to pull it off. The only way I could see it realistically topped in the future would be if both quads had Slippi.\nLastly, in terms of the raw scheduling and logistics of the event, singles ran nearly flawlessly. The enormous amount of streaming made a very convenient central hub to wrangle top players to, which cut down on associated delays, and staffing/pools running was plenty adequate. I do think that pools captaining was a little “loose” for first time attendees (would have been a disaster to apply the same attitute toward Ultimate if it had been there), but there were enough veterans in each pool that it worked out well. Furthermore, I personally like the round 1 straight into round 2 structure, and I feel vindicated in that yet again with another event pulling it off to great success. By contrast, I do think that the doubles-all-on-Sunday experiment was worth trying, but ultimately constituted a failure. Simply put, too many teams dropped out as a result of salt or wanting to focus on top cut of singles, and the level of focus and intensity in the room for doubles was noticeably less than usual at an event this size. Furthermore, creating a situation in which top teams like Panda/Krudo feel the need to drop out so they can not have to switch between doubles/singles, and having the end of doubles play out offstream, are simply not it. Credit where it is due for trying something new, but that particular piece of the formatting is not one I recommend anyone repeat or imitate.\nFor further negatives, I really only have very minor complaints. The first one is that the setup situation was not perfect, but truthfully it was still more than adequate, and suffered more from physical space limitations at the venue than supply or planning deficits. It was not at all a situation like most Big Houses or last year’s Genesis where getting games was impossible half the time, but it also wasn’t quite on the “grinder’s paradise” level like the last couple of Riptides or the old Shine series. Additionally, while I usually go to bat for the South as a region for hosting events, I admit that ATL traffic is singularly awful, and the comparatively high prices are less “quaint and Southern” and more what people may expect in major population centers. Still, these amount to quibbles, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Tipped off and in Atlanta.\nAs for the bracket, two things stand out I think to both me and everyone else: The continuation of the rise of Kyle Krudo and the seemingly unstoppable forces of Cody and Zain. Firstly, the one that virtually everyone is pleased to see: Krudo is no longer “on the cusp” or “next up” in any way; He is here, and he is him. Winning Full Bloom and then taking wins over Moky, Mango, and amsa means there should be no further doubt. I’d say hats off to him, but at this point it feels like kneeling reverence might be closer to appropriate. As for Cody/Zain…I know Zain has had a couple of events lately where he didn’t look up to his usual standard, and that Cody will inevitably lose to a random low tier in the next couple months, but it’s obvious to me that these are the best two players in the world. I know that sounds like recency bias, but to any naysayers I ask you this: did you, in your heart of hearts, really believe that Zain was the fourth best player in the world going into Tipped Off? I don’t know of anyone who did, and crazy pop off antics aside he readily proved his superiority to the field here. As for Cody, what more can be said? #1 for the summer locked up, frontrunner in the two horse race for year end #1, and the greatest Fox to ever do it.\nThat isn’t to say the very end of the bracket held all of the interesting bits. A number of players more quietly had very strong showings, most notably a few players I think people have recently forgotten about. First in this group is Llod, who made a killer run to 5th, losing only to Zain and amsa. I think this is a run that probably surprised a lot of more casual watchers, but to what I will affectionately call my fellow ball-knowers (nerds), there was little else to expect. Llod has always been a juggernaut of a competitor, hampered more by his professional schedule/attendance than his skill or practice discipline, and he showed it once again here, taking wins over Junebug, Axe, Soonsay, and Trif. An absolute murderer’s row, and apart from Soonsay I daresay he made it look easy. Kodorin also had an immensely undersung showing, taking out two historical Zain-slayers in Slug and Junebug, while also picking up wins on Fiction and Chem. With more events like this, we could even see a return to top 10 form for him, something I think that has been absent since the loss of his Flyquest sponsorship. Magi did what she did best, beat the brakes off of ever Fox not named Cody and then lose to amsa or Hbox before having an absolutely thrilling set with Mango that she probably should have taken. Soonsay had an insane run to 9th after losing super early to Jchu and nearly falling to Panos (insanely underrated player), taking out Beezy, None, Jmook Moky, and Ossify before finally falling to the aforementioned Llod.\nIn terms of underperformances, there were always going to be several in a bracket as stacked as this, but none so notable as the pair of Hbox and Jmook. I’m not sure what happened with Hbox: Maelstrom is a very good, IMHO an underrated player, but beating Hbox is admittedly a shock. Nicki too is surprising, given how readily SDJ seems to dispatch him (and every other ice climbers). As for Jmook, his bracket tells a more familiar tale: struggling with Fox. I have not analyzed the sets enough to say whether Jmook has fallen off vs Fox since his breakout, or if the Fox players have figured something out, but the difference in results is more than noticeable. He also just had a nightmare bracket in this instance playing visibly terribly into a Sheik terminator named Panda and having to play a borderline top 10 caliber Fox for 25th. In spite of this, I have faith in very few players like I have faith in Jmook, and believe 100% in his ability to bounce back stronger than ever.\nPersonal I did…okay at Tipped Off. I didn’t lose to anyone but top 30 players, but I have a lot of angst about how I played, and the way my set with MOF ended. Still, it was the first event since Genesis I felt reasonably prepared for and I don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake that it’s also the only one in the intervening window I got a decent placing at.\nMy first two sets were against players I did not know called Rhyme Mime and Ctec. Rhyme Mime was simply too new of a player to pose a serious threat to me, but Ctec was largely fairly solid. They were limited much more by their ability to execute their ideas than the ideas themselves, and I think also understood their plan/options a lot better than they understood mine. Still, a pretty impressive round two opponent, even if they did get 3-0’d.\nNext I played Typhoon, in what is an immediate contender for closest set of my entire life. To a significant degree this set was defined by two things, one of which would be a continuing theme later on in my set with Epoodle: getting outdone by newer, more “modern” Marth players by the ledge. The other was my inability to DI f throw, for which I have no excuse. Typhoon demonstrated more than adequate juggling capabilities in this set, but he rarely had to use them because I kept giving him free combos off throw, which really equalized a lot of punish stuff I felt like I would have otherwise had the edge in. As for the ledge/corner stuff, I really need to update my game, and to understand when I’m being outplayed and what my potential pool of adaptations is. S-f pointed out in discord that I’ve had three Marth dittos in the past 2 weeks go game 5 vs unranked players, and while I won all of them, I’d rather not keep doing that. I think polishing up my corner/ledge gameplay is the clearest route to not doing that anymore, and I’ll endeavor to clean that up in the future. I will also note that Typhoon SD’d last stock game 5 going for the koopa edgeguard, and while it would not have hit me had he not messed it up, he would have been in better position than me in a very precarious situation (both Marth’s \u0026gt;100 on FD). An unfortunate happening, but I do commend the courage to go for such a frame tight, death-risking technique in the clutch.\nMy next set was against MOF, and was a pretty frustrating one for me. I had been pinging ice climbers in MO and DMs for over a week before the event, and had succeeded in getting exactly 0 to play with me. I did manage to warm up with Boyd for just a bit before bracket, but other than that the sum total of my practice vs high level ICs since my last set with MOF (in 2022!) was probably running into Frostbyte and Zion a handful of times on unranked, the latter of which I don’t terribly want to play for obvious reasons. This is certainly a john, but I feel as though I put in the effort to prepare for this set and just…couldn’t. I think the solidity of my gameplan and knowledge did shine through, as I was working my way towards a reverse 3-0 before I got clutched on last stock by Sopo. That one hurt especially bad because I deliberately got hit by the upsmash that ultimately killed me, thinking I would keep my composure, take the hit, and reset to neutral for the (hopeful) win. I’ve never been so wrong about kill percents in such a crucial situation, and I just have to hold that for the rest of my life.\nNext I played Supersponge, SC’s best player. Out of respect for him and the SC scene, I’m not going to write a lot here, but suffice it to say this was a very quick set. I know he’s good; I’ve seen him piece up some of my friends from TN many times. However, everything just kind of worked for me in this set and it was easily the most lopsided I’ve ever won something this deep in a major bracket.\nLastly, I played Junebug. I’m not going to write too much here because there is absolutely no way my honest feelings won’t be memed on as sour grapes if enough people read this (doubtful). I’ve never left a set where I got 3-0’d and felt disgusted by my opponent afterwards, but there’s a first time for everything. I felt like I wanted to ask June: “Why are you here?” I don’t understand the point of playing the game the way he does, sitting there mashing reversals, hoping the other guy is too nervous or too employed to execute precisely enough. Occasionally running across the stage and full sending grab does not interacting in neutral make. I know he’s a good guy, an excellent commentator, and an objectively great player, but fuck Junebug man. I think people that play like that never set out to win the tournament, never set out to be all that they can be, just try to show off how far they can come despite a handicap and ruin someone else’s day.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/tipped_off_16/","summary":"","title":" Tipped Off 16"},{"content":"Event Genesis is a series that needs no introduction, being traditionally Melee’s largest tournament of the year, and now, with the fall of The Big House, our one true all-but-guaranteed super major. I do not want to spend a great deal of time eulogizing a series that is still around, but I do want to begin by taking a moment to highlight that this year’s Genesis X2 was substantially smaller than Genesis X. There are a number of likely culprit’s for this: Valentine’s day weekend, Ultimate entrant numbers/general enthusiasm being down, no recent big happenings in the scene to galvanize us etc., but the fact remains that huge events like this generally do not project shedding almost a third of their attendees year to year, and typically will not make money with such numbers. While I was highly critical of Big House 11, the loss of such a historic and significant series is a blow that can be scarcely overstated. Much has been (fairly) said about the scene’s resilience and DPOTG’s explosion into a super major to fill the void for the end of year supermajor, but losing big events is always painful. There is an entire population of Norcal Melee players that more or less only go to Genesis. Try going to Genesis yourself and you’ll hear about them. What many outside the MW do not realize, however, is that in turn there were a significant number of players that essentially only went to Big House. When pillars of the scene fall, they may not bring down the sky, but they always bring down some of us. I am not privy in any way to Genesis’s financial situation, and do not want to sound in any way doomer or alarmist; I do not believe that Melee is in any danger of going anywhere. However, to lose an event of the caliber of Genesis would be a massive setback to our community, and I urge anyone who reads this who has never come out for Genesis to attend next year. They deserve and need our support, possibly now more than ever.\nIn terms of how the event was run, Genesis X2 was my third Genesis, and it was easily the best I have attended. I personally disliked that some pools were scheduled so late (I find 7:30pm round one pools conceptually questionable), but ultimately that is a small complaint and possibly even a question of personal taste. As such, I’m not sure it is fair to fault the event on it, especially considering that they still ran without a hitch. On everything else, it was, in a word, stellar. Genesis pools/bracket have never been run poorly while I was there, but in previous iterations, there has always been at least one major out of bracket factor that soured the event for attendees. Previously, inability to attend Sunday top 8 without waiting in line for hours, hostile security, comical line lengths for entry to the venue, and no setups on Sunday morning all negatively impacted the experience. This year, nothing radical changed, Genesis staff just eliminated essentially every issue. Venue top 8 seating was doubtlessly “helped” by relatively weak attendance, but other than that I have very little to say and give a tip of my metaphorical hat to those running the event. They doubtlessly both noticed issues on their own and listened to feedback, and subsequently put in the work to ensure the best possible experience for everyone. I saw tweets about “cursed Genesis” because of the number of dropouts due to flight issues etc., but make no mistake: Everything that Genesis could control they did with aplomb, and Genesis X2 was the best supermajor level event I have ever attended (despite the dumb name).\nAnother thing I want to address briefly was the usage of 1:5 hour pools instead of the usual 2 hours. This was touted as a major breakthrough by organizers and was received with glowing praise by the senior volunteers I spoke with. For my own part, and for the part of essentially all the competitors I talked to about it, we did not care at all. In truth, I think this is a funny example of the occasional disconnect between what organizers and attendees each desire, but in this case it was harmless. If it helps events, by all means run 1.5 hour pools, but I would never make it a selling point for players; I just don’t think we care.\nAs for San Jose/the area, I have to confess that I am less in love with it than a lot of people. The venue is a very generic convention center, and while the weather is nice, the food that I hear everyone raving about I find good but not great, and since it is California everything is quite expensive. Still, it could be a lot worse: Everything is very walkable, and the presence of the partnered bar/venue Guildhouse remains a consistent bright spot on the Genesis experience. I have talked about San Jose in previous write ups and nothing has really changed in regards to that in the last couple of years, and so I keep this brief in the interest of not repeating myself too much.\nAs for the bracket itself…where do I even begin? Zain didn’t come! I know he wanted to and don’t fault him at all, but it felt exceedingly weird to have the biggest event of the year without the #1 player. Zain is someone I have an enormous degree of faith in, so I don’t think this indicates anything negative for his coming year, but it does feel weird that our kickoff to the year, and likely our biggest tournament of the year, will now have the shadow of “mickey mouse” cast over it. As for things that happened once the bracket went underway, Aura popped off so hard he became a full time Melee player, beating Cody Schwab and nearly defeating Wizzrobe. Trif finally ascended to the place Europe has been telling us he could occupy since 2019. Jmook underperformed, which means we are now owed a crazy Jmook dub somewhere down the line. Salt had a phenomenal run to 5th place, beating Axe x2, Joshman, myself, Maher, and nearly beating the eventual winner in Hungrybox. Krudo lost in r1 pools to a 14 year old box ICs (no part of that description is a joke) before going on an absolute rampage to his seeded 13th place. Hbox won his first major in 3 years, and his first major of this caliber in almost five. So many notable placings and upsets occurred in pools or shortly after that I could dedicate an entire piece to it. For any casual readers (does anyone not tapped in ever read one of these?), let me give you an idea of just how crazy brackets at something like Genesis are in 2025: All time great players like Ka-Master get 95th and nobody bats an eye. I didn’t even hear about that until reviewing pools in preparation to write this. Genesis is just that stacked and Melee is just that tough in the modern day.\nPersonal experience For my part, I had a decent Genesis, and I was pleased to see the fruits of my labor finally start to pay dividends in a few long standing trouble spots in my gameplay. Namely, I finally started to get a handle on dealing with my opponents’ respawn invincibility, and became less exploitable off the side platform. I also had a decent run, for once flying out to the west coast without being upset in bracket, and even scoring a small upset of my own. I also felt like my bracket sets, as well as the games I played outside of bracket, were very informative for me, and I learned more about my strengths and weaknesses immersing myself in the game in San Jose than I generally do in months at home.\nFor my round one pools, my four seed (1 seeds play 4 seeds to make it out) did not end up making it to the pool, which means I had a comparatively easy time of it. I was very impressed with my round one, a newer Marth player with the tag LilyMaplePup. I do not want to oversell her as the next Zain or some kind of world beater, but for a major round 1 with barely over a year of playing, I was pretty floored at the skill level on display. “Everyone is so good now” is something that gets repeated a lot in our community, and I think there is an understandable tendency to ascribe that to Melee being a “legacy” game that everyone has been playing forever. However, there are many relatively new Slippi “kids” that are right there keeping up with the rest of us. My other two opponents were a Falcon called Pikazoo (Pikachu jumpscare in pools as a Marth) and a Sheik called Cruncho. They were all fun to fight, but ultimately I swept all three sets very handily, as is frankly expected at this point.\nMy first set in round two pools, and my only set on the main stream, was vs Rocky. This was a set I was a little nervous going into as I didn’t really know what to expect. Rocky is a name that evokes terror in doubles, but I didn’t know how in practice he would be for singles or really much at all about his playstyle. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like I ever really learned much about his playstyle, nor him about mine, because we both played terribly. Unforced errors were what decided this set, and I was able to convert harder off his unforced errors than he was off of mine (Marth), and so I was able to take the set 3-0. This is one set I will not be watching back, despite considering it a good win. I just genuinely think that very little Melee of value happened here other than one good edgeguard I hit in game one, and I advise anyone looking to learn about either Rocky or myself to look elsewhere.\nMy next set was against Salt, which I lost, but I think was played immensely better. It was a 3-1 in Salt’s favor, and while I think a lot of readers may look at this set on paper and think it was hopeless for me from the beginning, that was not at all the case, and there were a handful of pivotal moments that decided the set that I think I can learn from and come back stronger. Namely, in game one there was a sequence when I was teching on the right and then left platform and then back several times in a punish sequence from Salt. I lost my composure and began autopiloting both my DI and tech pattern, and Salt was able to convert what should have been a 30-40% punish into an entire stock. In the second game, which I also lost, I SD’d twice. There really isn’t much to say about that other than that winning against someone of Salt’s caliber is incredibly difficult in that circumstance, and while I am upset about it, those things do happen on occasion. I won game three by a wide margin, and then at the beginning of game 4 Salt 0 to deathed me off of round start in about 6 seconds. It was, in all honesty, probably the single best round start I’ve ever been on the receiving end of in Melee, and I felt thoroughly both out prepared and out played. The deficit that sequence put me in was just a little too much, and I lost the set in a close game four. That first stock opened my eyes to how negligent I’ve been about round start as a concept in Melee, and I’m now going to begin planning it out in various matchups. I have a few round start tricks vs Fox, but I’ve realized I’m basically spitballing in every other matchup. I need to put time into this, and I’m realizing even as I type this that Marth’s desire to get off the side plat ASAP in a lot of MUs means I’ll need to map out separate scenarios based on port for a lot of MUs (yuck). Still, despite the loss I’m glad to learn about the weakness in my DI from the first game and the hole in my broader gameplay in game four. I will also say that while game four was very winnable and probably even would have gone my way if she didn’t blow me up off the rip, she counterpicked Stadium first instead of Dreamland for whatever reason, and I don’t know that I could have beaten her on Dreamland. I think it’s a very strong counterpick, Salt is very good with space, and in all honesty I just don’t know that I’m good enough to beat her there. I think game two was, in an ideal reality, a do or die situation, and the SDs probably just sealed the set for me. I’ve put in serious work on getting better specifically vs Falcon on Dreamland, but I’m still not sure I have a consistent answer to a player of her caliber on that stage besides “get significantly better at the game”.\nMy next set was supposed to be vs the Marth Typhoon, but he was upset in pools by a Peach called Mustache Massacre and I ended up playing the Sheik Subtails for top 64 instead. I will not lie: I had absolutely no idea what to expect going into this set, and Subtails was not on my radar going into the bracket like Typhoon was. This set reminded me of my set with Holiday a couple of months ago in that I played a strong Sheik player and essentially won the set by winning game one so hard. I played fantastically most of game one, got both lucky bounces and big dividends from dipping into my bag of tricks, and finished with a confident three stock. The rest of the set was considerably sloppier on my part, but it didn’t really matter because I think at that point Subtails was either titled or gassed. He seemed very insistent on beginning almost all interactions with needles, usually from the side platform, and I was able to maneuver around them well enough to prevent big openings on my way to an uneventful 3-0, securing my first Genesis main bracket spot. I don’t know if I will play Subtails again to discover they are an absolute demon that I got a little lucky against, as I have learned from playing Holiday lately, but it wouldn’t shock me.\nMy first set in top 64 was vs Nanami, an absolutely terrifying multi-main opponent who was seeded to beat me. I don’t exaggerate when I say that Nanami has a legitimate case for most undersung top 100 player relative to her skill level, and so I was sweating this set pretty profusely. The set began with Marth vs Fox on battlefield, and I managed to open up with a big sequence at the start of game one to establish a lead, and was then able to ride that to a reasonable margin of victory, which would be the only game that didn’t play out ot be a nail biter. In game two, she counterpicked Fox on Yoshi’s Story, and I was struck by both how well she played the stage and how un-box her Fox is capable of being. Typically, I have slightly different stage opinions for box vs GCC Fox in this MU. Operatively in this case, YS is less of a problem vs box Fox since the typical box strengths (perfect easy execution dash dance, uncanny drift) are a little less relevant there and don’t exploit Fox’s strengths with verticality on that stage, and box Foxes almost always play to those natural controller-aided strengths. Nanami however surprised me by playing the stage quite well, and I ended up losing the game despite playing, in my opinion, reasonably well myself. This was perhaps the hardest my confidence was shaken all weekend. because there was nothing really obvious to point to for why I lost; I just got outplayed on a tough stage. The next two games were on final destination vs Jigglypuff, with me losing the first and winning the second. Unlike the Fox games in this set, I am pretty unhappy with both my mental game and my play vs Puff here. For the mental game, my intrusive thoughts were winning for a while, especially in game three. My internal monologue when I play in tournament is usually just the occasional note about an opponent habit or some positive self talk after a big moment good or bad, but I do get occasionally get an unwelcome internal voice worrying about how upset I’m going to be after I lose a set (even ones I eventually win), and I do my best to quell that. Not only did that voice start talking during the FD games, it also spiraled into a hateful internal monologue something along the lines of “Stupid fucking box Jigglypuff I hate puff I hate her I hate her I hate her”. Obviously, this is not conducive to optimal play, and I think it had an impact that came out in the form of elevated nerves and sloppy gameplay. Game four I was definitely tightening up near the end and got the job done, but there still left multiple things to be desired. My execution was never very tight, and in terms of decision making I did a very consistently poor job of getting off the ledge. I also found myself fishing for side b 1 into up tilt way too much. While side b up tilt did eventually secure me the final kill of game four, I was punished for it numerous times before then and should have mixed in side b 2 (my usual go to) or abandoned it much earlier. Game five was once again Fox vs Marth, this time on Dreamland. I must admit that I’m a little surprised she did not stick to Puff on Dreamland, but I do think Fox is actually her best character, so it was by no means a bad pick. I started off a little off balance from the radical pace shift of fighting a Fox vs a Puff, but I eventually managed to find my footing and take a very clutch final stock victory with a big combo into edgeguard sequence at the end. I was particularly proud of my final edgeguard, as even just 3-6 months ago I would have gone for a ledge drop back air that would have missed and potentially lost me the set. Instead, I properly recognized the angle she would take to avoid my bair, and held ledge into a getup attack to secure the game. I also think I must have been either so stressed it hurt my memory or “locked in” as the kids say, because truthfully I remember almost nothing about this game besides the beginning and end. Still, this is a win that I think will age very well, and so long as she continues to grind and travel Nanami is someone I think that will become a bigger and bigger name as time goes by. She is already among the very best of the “young netplay warrior” squad at majors (you know exactly what I mean if you go to enough tournaments) and also has one of the fastest improving trajectories among them.\nMy final set of the tournament was vs Panda, where I lost 3-0. I had a consistent issue with doing telegraphed high recoveries when I was scrambling/off my game, but other than that I am not going to lie and say I felt thoroughly outplayed in this set. Panda is an incredibly strong player who I could absolutely lose to while firing on all cylinders, but that is not the story of what happened here. The story of this set was a Marth screwing up so badly that he would get a grab on final destination and think “oh no” because he knows he will find a way to drop it and get reversaled. I do not know why I played so poorly in this set. Maybe I was gassed from my set with Nanami, but I didn’t feel tired, and I also didn’t play on tilt or get overly frustrated with any of the goings on. I can liken the experience to fighting someone in a dream, where a foe that should be at least fightable is instead invincible because the dreamer’s punches are somehow thrown as if they are underwater. Whatever the case, I don’t really know how to move forward from this set other than hoping I don’t play like this again, and trying to grind out my FD punish game until it’s undroppable even by my feeble dream warrior self. I’m not sure that that’s feasible given how many times I’ve seen Zain drop it, but what can I do other than my best?\nAnd that’s Genesis in the books. I will continue to work on composing myself when choosing ledge options, thinking about round start more deeply, not always recovering high when under pressure, not brainlessly fishing for floaty killer, and just generally improving at the game. Genesis reaffirmed my love for the game once again, and I am eager to wash the taste of last year’s forced hiatus out of my mouth by attending all I can in 2025.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/genesis_x2/","summary":"","title":"Genesis X2"},{"content":"Combo Breaker 2024 was a massive fighting game tournament held in Schaumburg, IL from May 24-26th. Featuring over 3500 unique entrants, this Combo Breaker was (I believe) the largest tournament I have ever attended. It was, in virtually all aspects, worthy of such scale. Never once did I walk into the venue and find a sore thumb sticking out. Issues that were glaring at recent smash events were nowhere to be found: Security? I would have liked a metal detector, but bag check was so smooth and fast it would have moved Genesis staff to tears. Event running? Everything finished with time to spare. Setups? Some of the FGC games struggled, but Combo Breaker featured so much to do and so many different games that I never saw a soul bored for a moment. I even received less bizarre, unwarranted hostility for being a Melee player than I usually do at FGC focused events (although still some!). Indeed, many Melee people left the event talking about how they were interested in learning this game or that game, and it honestly warmed my heart. The name for Combo Breaker’s “community” tournaments is All In Together, and I loved to see that spirit shine through.\nSomething special/unique I want to highlight for the event is just how good the vendors/merch were for Combo Breaker. With no exaggeration, the Combo Breaker merch was the easily he best I’ve ever seen at a tournament. While it wasn’t cheap, it is all immaculately designed and well made, and just looks good. Furthermore, there was a greater variety of booths/types of vendors than at smash events. At smash events, virtually every vendor can be divided into either art or controllers, and truthfully at some point it begins to feel a little saturated, even with all the legitimate, hard working talent in the community. Combo Breaker having a few other things to mix it up (Rivals 2 demo booth, the great POPCORN BARON) was extremely appreciated. I hope smash events in the future elect to take a page out of their book on this, because it made the weekend feel more alive and fun throughout.\nI will, however, take a moment from the glowing praise to highlight a couple of issues that I think could be improved upon. The first of which was the temperature. The venue at Combo Breaker was COLD. Probably the coldest major venue I’ve ever been in, and I spent more time cursing myself for not bringing a jacket than at any other public function I’ve ever attended. I heard through the grapevine that there was an odor issue (not from attendees but from some spill etc), and they were presented with the catch-22 of either cranking the AC or dealing with the odor. I will say that their decision was probably the right one, but it did suck dealing with the temperature and I believe it did impact my performance in a couple of sets, and I’m sure it did the same to many others as well.\nThe other, more complex issue I had was with the scheduling. The event ran supremely smoothly, and both staff and volunteers were helpful, professional, and kind. However, the pools were ran in such a manner that people with 10am or 12pm pools would both play round 2 pools at 2pm, meaning the first group would take a break and the second group would essentially play straight through. More than just personal taste, I don’t believe that this is a good way to structure pools. Parity between competitors should be sought as much as possible, and having a break vs not having one can be a very significant factor, especially in sets between players of very close skill levels. Tenacity (head Melee TO) actually brought this up with me during the event, but I expressed that I had no problems with the schedule because it didn’t impact me and I hadn’t yet realized exactly how it worked. I was wrong, and if he reads this that was my bad. I also understand that this schedule was probably mandated by the larger Combo Breaker event itself, but I think that in the future TOs should seek to avoid this whenever possible.\nLastly, and I cannot say that this was bad since it’s ultimately a matter of personal opinion, but I do believe the event misstepped by putting to a poll what patch Street Fighter would be run on. CB 2024 was the largest non-Evo Street Fighter of all time, and to place it on essentially clown rules with only a few days notice sits very poorly with me. People further justified this by saying that it was okay since it wasn’t a Capcom Pro Tour event, but that honestly just feels even worse. I understand that the attitudes towards Capcom aren’t as overwhelmingly negative in the SF community as the ones towards Nintendo in Melee, but I wish people would ask themselves: Does Capcom own Street Fighter, or does the FGC? The event should not be disregarded because it did not successfully curry the favor of a corporation.\nWIth regards to the tournament itself and the brackets, I won’t even attempt to talk about any brackets other than Melee. SFVI’s was a mess due to being run on a 3 day old patch, and that was the only game I was following at all going into the event besides Melee. That isn’t to say other games weren’t fun to watch; on the contrary, I had a great time viewing Tekken top 8 and various bits of other games in the venue. I just don’t have intelligent enough insights to offer about the goings on in those brackets to write about it here. As for the Melee bracket, the two standouts by seeding were undoubtedly Essy and Zealot. Zealot’s “overperformance” shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. His attendance has been very low, but his peak skill was/is very high and I pity anyone that had to seed him for Combo Breaker or anything in the near future. Essy is one that may surprise those unfamiliar with her, but will never surprise me. I expressed frustration once to a friend about how Essy was such a tough opponent to face because beating her is so incredibly hard and doesn’t look as good on you as it feels like it should because sometimes she will just randomly lose sets you would not expect. His response was something along the lines of “yeah it’s weird sometimes she just gets double eliminated by Coffee (my GOAT) and then a few weeks later she’ll go laser eyes and top 8 a major”. At Combo Breaker we got laser eyes Essy making a run all the way to third beating KoopaTroopa, Preeminent, Wevans, and Blue, which is always a treat to see. Other standout performances included Preeminent making it to winner’s side top 8 with a win on Bbatts, and Wevans making it to top 8 through JSalt and myself. Further down the bracket were also some notable performances, with Grab2Win scoring upsets on both Den and Chango, and 2ToesToto making it to top 32 as a completely unseeded player.\nPersonal Performance Sometimes, you come up short while coming so close that you almost want to pretend that things were different. To live in another, very similar parallel universe in which you accomplished your goals rather than missing the mark. I felt that temptation in a big way after Combo Breaker, losing both my Melee singles sets in heartbreaking game 5 last stock fashion and falling to perform to seed. Still, it is my belief that this temptation is ultimately just another form of escapist ego defense, no different than drowning your sorrow in booze or drugs. I live in the world in which I lost, and what is left to me is to learn from it what I can. This event, like Santa Paws and DHATL at the end of last year, shined a harsh light on my inability to perform in my first sets of the day, with me finally hitting my groove vs Chango (4th set) Saturday only to go back to jittering and flailing on Sunday. This problem has gotten to the point that I am considering seeing a sports psychologist over it. It seems a pretty overblown solution to the problem for a comparatively middle of the pack competitor like myself, but at this point I’m halfway convinced I could have recovered the money for it in payouts by now if I could perform at my 4th-5th set level as the day begins.\nAs an important aside, my number one concern going into this event was actually not my performance, but the health of my thumbs. I have been having pain and weakness in the large basal joint of my thumbs, and it has been greatly amplified recently, to the point that I didn’t play Melee for about a week before Combo Breaker. I think that the most likely causes are either De Quervain’s syndrome or early osteoarthritis, both of which scare me. I will be visiting a doctor about the issue ASAP, but for the time being I was just glad I was able to play without major pain during Saturday and Sunday.\nFor my round one pool, my first two opponents were Fox players that were simply not up to the task of beating me. They had reasonable technical proficiency, but struggled to find openings or convert in a meaningful way when they did. I say this without the intention of any disrespect towards either of them, and mean only that I won’t/can’t go into any real depth about those sets.\nMy opponent to get out of R1 pools was Eggy, a strong Peach from Chicago who I had last played at a Kill Roy event early last year. I am not going to sugarcoat my feelings about this set: I played terribly, probably my worst set of the entire event, and that frustrates me greatly because I also played very poorly in my last bout with Eggy. Luckily for me, Eggy also played very poorly in this set, and we had multiple downright cringeworthy moments where we would do things like grab/aerial in the completely wrong direction or stand facing each other frozen because we couldn’t move our characters, not because we were playing some high level mixup. Still I simply think that Eggy is not nearly as strong in the Marth MU as he is in some others and as a result I was able to win despite the slop. I was angry and annoyed the entire set about my inability to execute, and this is the one set that I will John a little bit about the cold in the venue. I could not feel all of my fingertips during this set, and it made playing clean Melee very difficult. I managed to borrow a jacket from a friend during my other sets, which turned out to be a good call and a valuable lesson for this and future events.\nMy next set was against Chango, and was honestly the only set I felt proud of in any way at Combo Breaker. I will say that despite looking pretty dominant by me, there was a bit of an elephant in the room with regards to this set, which was Chango’s inability to rest. He probably missed/forwent 3-4 rests in this set, which of course can be huge. Otherwise, I felt like I played neutral pretty well in this set, and actually only took a lot of damage in situations where I would miss a waveland/edgecancel or get an accidental roll. I also did a very good job of visualizing where the arc of Puff’s jumps would take her, leading to a number of callout tippers that kept most of my kill percents reasonable. In terms of things I could do better in the set, I still didn’t find very many grabs, but at the same time I was so dominant on both the ground and air when I wasn’t flubbing execution I’m not sure that was even a bad thing. Chango did start to adapt well in the third game of this set, so I would expect future contests to be challenging, but overall I’m always glad to have sets vs Puff in tournament where I don’t just get lose to nerves/tilt before the set actually ends.\nMy next set was against Magi, and while it wasn’t as bad as the Eggy set, I think it was pretty subpar from both of us. The FD game in particular was extremely poorly played, with me dropping more than half my major conversions and Magi throwing the game egregiously at the end. The rest of the games weren’t nearly as bad as that one, but they still could have been a lot better. In particular on my end I struggled mightily to move out of lasers, getting a disastrous number of accidental rolls/spotdodges when attempting to wavedash out of shield. The rolls in were particularly harmful, and a couple of crucial ones game five probably cost me the set. This is something that I partially blame controller issues on (I received my controller with digital triggers back from a modder a few days before the event after using analog triggers for a month), but ultimately I knew I was likely to play Magi and could have grinded this out in 20XX or similar. For her part, I felt that she played neutral pretty characteristically but definitely dropped a number of followups that I don’t normally see from her, and it was due to playing off and not any excellent defense from me. Still, I did learn a few things in this set, most notably not to do lazy side b edgeguards vs Falco and to be more ready to shield grab double shine after shield DIing out. In terms of the things I was just sloppy on, I missed a ton of uthrow followups, which was the opposite of my normal issue being bad at techchasing. I think I was so focused on not screwing up the latter I ended up missing the former.\nAfter that I played Wevans, which I also lost. Simply put, I don’t think I’ve ever been more jealous of another competitor than I was during this set. Wevans played incredibly well, probably the best a Samus has ever played vs me in tournament, definitely eclipsing our DHATL 2022 seat which would have been the set I previously would have said was the best a Samus had performed against me. He just fired on all cylinders from bell to bell, and even with a couple of nervy moments in game five I feel that I could count the unforced errors from him on one hand. By contrast, I felt like I was drowning in my own adrenaline and anxiety, repeating predictable habits off of platforms (that he did a great job of punishing) and flubbing basic movement. I don’t think other people saw it this way because the set was so close, but I’m honestly not sure if I’ve ever been more embarrassed about my composure. If someone made a soyjack vs handsome face of me vs Wevans for that set, I would be a little mad at them, but it would be justified. That said, the set wasn’t without some good stuff from me: I did a great job of calling out backwards movement with dash attack, and I also did well at dealing with Samus recovery when she lacked either grapple or double jump. The set also reinforced to me that I need to learn more aggressive options when she does have all her resources though, as I more or less let him back completely for free under those conditions. I’ve labbed and I’m quite sure there are no guaranteed options for Marth to pursue in that situation, but there has to be something(s) I’m missing with acceptable risk reward.\nPainting with broader strokes, there was also my ever-present issue with struggling vs my opponents’ respawn invincibility, which was a major pain point in basically every set. I’m going to have to sit down and do a lot of hardcore analysis on this topic, because I watch Zain play against even stronger players and he doesn’t get blown up in this position half as much.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/combo_breaker_2024/","summary":"","title":"Combo Breaker 2024"},{"content":"Full Bloom 2024 was a tournament held in Bloomington, IN on IU’s campus on February 24-25th. In some sense, almost all college tournaments are the same: they take place on a labyrinthian college campus in either a classroom (small event) or large hall (Full Bloom sized event), and we all wander around until we hear clacking and CRT fuzz. Fortunately, IU is a particularly beautiful campus to do this wandering on, and Full Bloom has the unique distinction of having an organist on staff playing in addition to the normal Melee sounds, so it does have a few nice things to distinguish itself from other college tourneys, even before you consider the legacy and level of competition. In addition, the weather was reasonably agreeable for February, with the nearby downtown area comfortably walkable and convenient for tourney-goers.\nAs for how the event itself went, it was as smooth and fun as any of the other Full Blooms. Full Bloom has always been known as a series for its excellent attendee experience, and this iteration did nothing to change that. Every pool and event ran on schedule, and there was never any panic or pressure amongst staff on the floor. Indeed, the easy and affable nature of the staff was a breath of fresh air after the harsher demeanor of some of the Genesis staff the previous weekend. Even the stream never seemed to have much downtime, and every time I looked up to watch it there was an engaging match on display. All of that said, the schedule was a little idiosyncratic. In particular, many people played their R1 singles pool before their doubles pool. Additionally, top 16 doubles started at 8pm on Saturday, which was pretty unusual. In terms of whether those were good or bad things, I heard very mixed responses. Some people loved having doubles late so they could finish it day one, and others hated it. None of it affected me personally (I got 17th in doubles and had my singles pool earlier than doubles), but I know I heard both good and bad about it all weekend. My gut impulse is that I would prefer the traditional “dubs first” way of doing things, but I don’t have an objective reason for that.\nIn terms of critiques/downsides to the event, I don’t have many of consequence. My only one I feel any confidence in is being annoyed that a number of setups were taken away for additional chairs Sunday morning. I know I probably sound like a broken record about setups at this point, but people keep taking them away. If you run an event, please: bite and claw to keep the setups out as long as possible. I’ve said this once and I’ll say it a thousand more times: Melee players go to Melee tournaments to play Melee. However, I will also say that the percentage of setups FB took away was much less than most events that do so, and certainly within the realm of acceptable compromise if it was truly necessary. My other primary “critique”, if it can be called one, would be that it would have been nice to have some kind of side stream. I don’t know if the absence thereof was due to manpower, internet, money, or what, but a lot of interesting matches happened offstream and it would have been cool to have it available. Additionally, as a competitor I was told my next match would be on stream twice and then moved off, which supports my notion that the schedule for it was competitive/congested. Still, I would hardly consider multiple streams mandatory for an event of this size, and these critiques are ultimately minor nitpicks against an event that I thought went outstandingly well overall.\nAs for the bracket, Zain/Jmook had another epic duel of course, but the most standout performance was undoubtedly Sirmeris. With an absolutely monster run beating Komodo, TRT, Salt, myself, and Mango (!) to get 4th place at a major event, his is probably my favorite run of the year so far. Furthermore, it would be remiss not to mention Ossify and his reverse 3-0 on Mango. His run was further underscored by 3-0ing both KJH and Free Palestine, two opponents that, while he was seeded to defeat, would not have been such comfortable foes for him to face less than a year ago. To me, that underlines his rapid progress towards the top level every bit as much as his more than respectable showings against Zain/Jmook. Other than that, I don’t think anyone’s run was too far out of the ordinary; some may point to my 7th place finish, but in truth thanks to Polish’s DQ out of loser’s and the way the flow of the bracket worked, I only had to make one upset to get there.\nPERSONAL I came into Full Bloom with pretty mixed feelings. I really like the series, and I was hungry to do well after a pretty weak Genesis, but at the same time the Melee I had been playing at home since Genesis the previous weekend was some of the worst of my life. Every time I played online I felt ruinously off my game, and not that much better on CRT the one time I tried it. Still, I’ve been around long enough at this point to know that won’t necessarily mean a poor performance in bracket, and I came in without much in the way of expectations.\nFor doubles, I got to team with my good friend Cantus. Cantus and I are known in our region for weak doubles performances relative to our singles acumen, but I was still excited for it as it was our first time teaming at a big event. I was also optimistic this time, as I had noticed an uptick in the quality of his play preceding this event. Unfortunately, we did not have the banner performance I was hoping for, losing both sets that we lost 2-0 to the strong teams of Slowking/Travioli and Happymealz/Max. Still, neither set felt unwinnable, and I would have gladly run the team again. It honestly felt like that more than anything else, what we needed was more practice.\nAs for singles, this was my first top 8 at a “major” (I know that’s contentious since Cody dropped out). However, it came a little bittersweet for me. I really don’t think I played all that well at Full Bloom, and as mentioned earlier only made one real upset to get there. I know the one upset part isn’t my fault; I can only beat the opponents on the set up next to me, but it still felt like a very normal run that I got awkwardly congratulated about a lot. I also took a degree of offense to the introductions for top 8 describing Simeris and I as being there “against all odds”. I don’t know if that was Jorge ad libbing (huge Jorge fan, I’m not hating on him for this) or a script, but I think it’s generally a wack thing to say about players that have been around and (moderately) successful as long as the two of us have.\nAs for the matches themselves My first set was against a Peach player that I 8 stocked. They really weren’t bad but just had a way to go before understanding the Marth MU and generally moving/thinking fast enough to contend with me.\nMy second set was against Life, a Falco player that I had heard of but never had the pleasure of playing before. I fumbled a decent bit initially in this set because his DI/defense were so strange and at times I’d even say wrong (would always DI to get chaingrabbed rather than to the platform) that I was unprepared for it and got reversaled a lot game one. Still, I managed to catch on to the strangeness by game two and won it handily.\nMy next set, which was to get out of pools, was against Sneakywill, a strong box Falco player from FL. Sneakywill is a player I run into on unranked with some regularity, but had never played in a truly competitive setting. This set was frustrating for me because it felt like someone had poured cement in Marth’s shoes. I could not move. I ended up winning somewhat comfortably with a two stock each game, but my internal monologue was mostly me shouting “I CAN’T MOVE” over and over again. I was hard carried by my punish and Sneakywill being mostly unprepared for good powershields, but if he were a little more polished at dealing with them (mostly not always shielding after getting hit by a PS laser), I could have been in very real trouble. I was fortunate here, and while I wouldn’t call it a got-away-with-murder type set, it was a lot more losable than most people watching imagined. I also dropped an absolute baby’s first edgeguard in game two that I have no excuse for. It was as though I could not believe the opportunity had presented itself and missed something I would have hit after 3 months of playing.\nAfter the Sneakywill set was Sunday top 64. For me, that meant a date with Michael, the very strong Chicago (and elsewhere) Puff player. I’ve always kind of struggled with Michael, and also find playing him different than his popular reputation would suggest. Melee pop culture would have you believe Michael is the campiest, most unpleasant player to ever touch a controller. He is extremely defensive to be certain, but in terms of avoiding interactions, I honestly think there are much worse out there. Michael prioritizes playing as safe as possible, and won’t approach much, but he’s not one of those players that are trying to mentally break you by refusing to interact at all and running away. That said, I ended up losing this set 3-1. I don’t think there was anything fundamentally wrong with my approach in this set. I kind of did the thing where I always play very poorly my first set of the day, but by game three I was beginning to clean things up. Unfortunately, two Dreamland games was just too much, and Michael closed it out in the end, partly on the strength of what I would call a really fortunate and not repeatable rest on a cross up attempt by me. Once I had settled in and my execution wasn’t just outright terrible, I felt reasonably comfortable in neutral, and most importantly felt like pushing Michael into the corner had some reward, something I had struggled with against him in the past. Some of my friends thought I needed to go for more grabs after the set, but I think they believe this from watching Zain force grabs on Puff players much worse than him (IE all of them). I won’t say I take every possible grab on the table for me, but I don’t think it’s a fundamental flaw I have in the matchup. If the Puff won’t land on the ground for more than a second, the solution in my opinion is to keep hitting them until they feel like they have to, not snatch at landings. I used to try and grab Puff landing all the time, and moving away from it has been one of my guiding lights in the MU in recent times, to great success. I know that I probably sound strangely optimistic for having lost the set and been upset, but Michael was probably (for me) the hardest player in his seed tier I could have drawn, and I left the set with a lot of confidence if we were to run it back in the near future.\nMy next set was against Reeve, who I’ve played plenty of times. I think some of my friends tend to view Reeve as an autowin for me (I haven’t lost in person or Slippi in about 5 years at this point), but I also think sometimes people pay too much attention to records and don’t actually watch sets. To me, Reeve is always dangerous, and I never sleep on him. I ended up losing game one in part due to an SD, but in truth that was not the primary issue with this set. I played extremely shaky the whole time, and couldn’t get it together to save my life. I had no SD excuse for why I lost game two. Indeed, it was on DL and I am typically very comfortable there, but managed to lose anyway, which I deserved. I played with no confidence in neutral, sloppy movement, and panic DI’d in repeatedly. Game three I rolled the dice and picked FD. I know I’m typically stronger than Reeve at the not-a-true-combo juggles, so the pick made sense on an objective level, but going FD was very scary given how I was playing. One panic hold in there can be a full stuff. It ended up paying off though, and the boosted confidence and extra time to get in the zone led to game four probably being my best played one of the set, even though Reeve got some favorable bounces. It was on YS, which is his typical counterpick vs me, but in truth I don’t mind YS in the ditto at all. Game five was FoD, which I very much do mind, and the pick definitely rattled me back into playing nervous/off. I need to really grind out the stage in the ditto and get over my aversion, because it nearly cost me here. I ended up winning with a two stock, but in truth it should probably have been closer. I got lucky on some desperate lunges (“dash attack in the Marth ditto makes the world better” - absolutely despicable people) against his last stock, and managed to execute my punish to seal the deal and get the reverse 3-0. Altogether, not a great showing, but I got the job done.\nMy next set was against Max, who I managed to beat 3-0. I really didn’t know what to expect coming into this set other than that Max had great edgeguards, but knew that he was up and coming and his being on the t100 ballot last year was in large part due to his victories over Marth players, so I was on guard. I think the defining aspect of this set was just how weirdly soft everything felt for a Marth/Sheik set. I kind of just nickel and dimed my way to victory, doing a really bad job of platform techchasing to extend my punish, but mitigating his punish with my defense well enough and winning neutral a little more to edge out every game. We even both mutually remarked about unexplosive it was after the set. Indeed, the only really explosive points were when I got some random combo into a tipper or when he hit an edgeguard. I think this set was probably a good bit closer than the 3-0 would suggest, and while I would have felt very good about the no top platform stages (don’t have to hit your plat techchases if there aren’t any), that isn’t something I want to bank on. In the future, I should just hit the bread and butter stuff. For Max’s part, I think he will study how to deal with Marth tech/slideoff/SDI patterns better and come back a more powerful player. Tech in place on plat-\u0026gt;buffered spotdodge got me out of more than it should, and he was not nearly as prepared for SDI in general (especially on utilt at low percents) as the top Sheiks. Still, his execution is very clean and these are very much fixable issues.\nNext I played Travioli, who I managed to beat 3-2. This set was jarring for me because he approached it with a style I was very much unprepared for.I hadn’t played him for quite a while, and remembered Travioli as a very cheeky “Drephen-esque” Sheik that would go for a lot of spotdodge grab etc. Instead, he showed a very different gameplan in the first game of the set, playing a lightning fast platform game that I didn\u0026rsquo;t see coming, and three stocked me. Luckily, I had FD up my sleeve, and took the no platform game to readjust mentally and prepare myself for the rest of the set. I did lose game three on DL, but it was a narrow affair on Sheik’s best stage and I felt like most of the bounces went his way, so I was pretty confident for the rest of the set. I ended up winning game four by an extreme margin (hit very hard and lived forever) and game five pretty comfortably, finally dealing with the platforms well. Still, I think that was the first time I’ve played a Sheik that used the platforms like that while remaining proactive, and it gives me something to mull over for the future.\nThe last set that I won was against KJH, who I managed to take it over 3-1. This was a set I was looking forward to, because I had publicly embarrassed myself on stream vs him at Kill Roy in the fall. I had/have a short list of players I desperately want another crack at, not because I think I can easily win or want revenge, but because I’m really upset about how I played in my last set vs them and want to wash the taste out of my mouth. Unfortunately, this set wasn’t that much better than the previous one, it just happened to go my way this time. The big difference in this set was how much earlier I caught onto how he likes to play the MU (very noncommittal, even pretty campy until suddenly swinging with a massive run up upsmash), and the fact that I was playing at maybe a 3/10 instead of the true 1/10 of last time. I also think KJH played pretty poorly in both sets we’ve played, and so still look forward to us maybe getting a good one sometime in the future. As an aside, it’s interesting with a player like KJH because his execution is so good that I feel like he mostly hits his stuff even when playing off, and it’s other aspects of his game, like his confidence, that aren’t there. For me, I know I’m playing bad when I start full hopping, air dodging, and missing all my techchases. For KJH, I think I see it when he dash dances on top platform for five seconds for no apparent reason. As for the actual contents of the set, I won game one with a suicide dair to finish a two stock. The game was mostly unremarkable other than that finish, which was a landmark for me because I am usually too afraid to close it out like that in tournament, and even remembered to go for (and hit) the correct dair hitbox. Game two I nearly mounted a three stock comeback after noticing how committed he was to the top platform, which I have to say is a strange strategy for Dreamland. On Yoshi’s for example, I think the top platform is very powerful for Fox because Marth can only threaten a tiny portion of it without full hopping, and Fox threatens nearly the entire stage. When Fox is on the DL top platform, he’s just kinda…up there. Still, I had dug too deep a hole/wasn’t clean enough in my challenges/edgeguards to fully complete the comeback, and so lost. Game three was just kind of an FD game. The last game was on YS, where I knew it would be tough because I think it lends itself well to his upsmash and top plat heavy playstyle. It was by no means a really well played game on either side, but I was glad of the result because some of the specific work I’ve put in on this stage paid off, specifically the uthrow-\u0026gt;soft hair-\u0026gt;fsmash combo I hit to seal the set. I still don’t like YS against Fox (I still don’t have the best answers to the top plat), but I have learned to hit really hard and not insta-lose to waveland bair from the top ropes, so that counts for something.\nMy last set of the weekend was against Sirmeris, who as everyone knows was on a bit of a God run. It’s interesting then, and perhaps a little scary, that I don’t feel like he played that uncharacteristically well against me. He played well, to be sure, but it didn’t really feel like a man possessed. Just like it was Sirmeris on a little better than average Sunday, which I think should point to everyone just how good he has gotten. I managed to take the first two stocks of game one in extremely explosive fashion (the second was a little fumbly on an accidental fastfall, but it got there), and then managed to ride that out to a victory. Still, despite that, I think game one already started to expose some of my flaws, most notably in dealing with turnips. Game two on DL started okay, but I kept getting force fed vegetables and put at a deficit as a result, and had to make way too many clutch plays to bring it as close as I did. I got both a touched-by-an-angel Ken combo and a hail Mary DI mixup and still lost. For the FD games, I once again just did a really bad job vs turnips, and also during game three got caught with too many dsmashes and an unfortunate SD. One thing I will say during game three is that the commentators were right about the fsmash at the end. I played that stock all but perfectly until that point, and then bet it all on black. It was a bad call, and I had successfully answered Sirmeri’s dash dance many times in this set, with things that would actually reach him, and instead gave in to the temptation of trying to win right now. Rookie mistake, and not the kind you can make while at 170. In short, the core story of this set (to me) was how much I did a bad job with turnips, and Sirmeris’s excellent capitalization on that fact. Not only did I deal with the actual vegetables poorly, I also allowed my fear of letting him pull influence my neutral overmuch. I started going for lunges to punish pulls rather than steady positional pressure, which is not at all the game you need to play vs Peach, and was doubly costly vs his excellent dash dance and spacing. When he already has a turnip, I need to do more than go for powershield/cc into instant attack. There are ranges/situations where catching them is acceptable, but even more I think I could do well with just defusing it with CC/PS and then resetting my dash dance range. I also think my techchasing left something to be desired, as I kept going for the late fair-regrab the rolls in places where it was not appropriate. Lastly, despite it not being a typical thing to go for, I actually could have found more explosive early kills like in game one, because Sirmeris was DIing DOWN and AWAY to an extent I think no other Peach I’ve played has matched.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/full_bloom_2024/","summary":"","title":"Full Bloom 2024"},{"content":"Genesis X was a supermajor that took place from Feb 16th-18th in San Jose, CA in 2024. I will not spend a great deal of time/energy writing about what Genesis is or the area; nothing changed since the previous year, and anyone who so wants to hear about the area can reference my Genesis 9 document.\nThere are a lot of positives to be said for Genesis. The area is nice, with plenty of food options in easy walking distance, and two hotels conjoined to the venue means that a very high percentage (myself included) of the full weekend attendees can easily get to and from the venue. Furthermore, Genesis does a much better job on setups than its only real supermajor rival (Big House), with it being very reasonable to find a setup at any time Friday/Saturday other than peak R1 pools. Additionally, this is the second year in a row that I have observed it run the largest Melee bracket of the year with next to no hiccups, even when challenged with absurd security line delays this year. Pools/brackets are scheduled well, run on time, and adequate staff/volunteers ensure things happen when they are supposed to. It would also be remiss not to mention the unique theater seating for top 8, which looks incredible both in photos and as an experience for those who found seats. Overall, while most of this document will be dedicated to complaints, I do not want it said that I believe Genesis is anything less than an excellent series, just one with some significant issues this year.\nThe first and most publicized of those issues was with security lines. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Genesis X had the single worst security line I have ever experienced, even beyond video game related events. It took me almost 90 minutes of standing in line to enter the venue the first day, and I heard multiple reports of \u0026gt;2 hours from people. This is not acceptable. I understand that it is “necessary” due to venue contracts to screen people for food, and necessary for safety to screen for weapons, but I have never experienced anything at an event even close to the Genesis lines this year. Furthermore, the security was at other times outright rude and belligerent. One of the most striking examples was when many people were standing in the aisles by the seats to watch top 64. Understandably, this was a fire hazard, and so security came to tell people not to do that. However, they did this by shouting at people that they could not stand and needed to sit down, which a good number of people misinterpreted and attempted to oblige by sitting on the floor. In response, a member of security began shouting threats to the effect of intending to drag them out of the venue. This is not only rude and unacceptable, it’s bad security practice. As security, avoiding violent escalation with the public should be among their very highest priorities. It’s a simple principle of the field that there are many members of the public and a much lower number of you. Starting a fight is an excellent way to get yourself and others hurt, and it’s a very bad sign that this individual was not thinking in those terms. To my understanding, this security was hired by Genesis and not the venue itself, which sounds damning, but is in my opinion actually a good thing. If the staff were attached to the venue itself, Genesis might have no recourse, but as it stands they can simply not hire this group again.\nNext I will point out what I complained about on twitter previously: Sunday setups. Genesis had advertised that they would have setups for friendlies until 9pm (might have been 10?) on Sunday, which was a selling point to some people. This was technically true, but on early Sunday morning about 100 of the 150 setups were packed up so that a smaller portion of the venue could be used. This really sucked, and it was incredibly hard to find a setup to play on the vast majority of Sunday. I ended up playing ~7 money matches in a row just to have an excuse to be on one, and I don’t even like money matches. I’m not really sure what to say about this, other than please do not do it. Melee players go to Melee tournaments to play Melee. I will reiterate that the setup situation was great Friday/Saturday, but it really leaves a bad taste in the mouth of attendees when so few setups are available the final day.\nLastly, I think Genesis misplayed their hand with the theater seating for top eight. In simple terms, unless you were there several hours before top 8 started, were willing to stand in a (no exaggeration) 4 block long line with no guarantee of entry, or had some sort of reserved section, you were not getting in that theater. However, I can’t say this was an error so much as it was a clearly failed experiment. I understand the difficulty of choosing whether or not to rent the extra space, and the risk you run by making the upcharge for it optional, but it just didn’t work out here. Hundreds of people paid extra for the theater space and were unable to use it.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/genesis_x-/","summary":"","title":"Genesis X"},{"content":"Tournament Mountain Mania was an event held in Blowing Rock, NC, and was the largest NC event since Bad Moon Rising 2 in 2017, with over 120 entrants in a single day event in a relatively small venue. Blowing Rock turned out to be a small skiing town that was very obviously centered around a tourist industry, which certainly has downsides, but at the same time it’s obvious why there is tourism: The area was strikingly beautiful. Unfortunately, the extreme mid January cold meant that pretty much everyone stayed indoors the whole time. Indeed, MOF and Joshman told me it was their first time seeing snow. The trip up the mountain could have been perilous in slightly wetter weather, and so I hope future events in the region aren’t in January, but all in all I thought it was a great event and would encourage any readers to check out any future iterations.\nAs for the event itself, it was a very normal, smoothly run Melee tournament. JGold and company ran brackets pretty close to on time and pretty close to flawlessly. My only critiques for the event were that the venue was a little small for the number of people it had to accommodate (I don’t think they expected to cap it so aggressively and quickly), and I do wish top 8 had started a little earlier. Other than that, I really don’t have much to say, as the event had no major issues. JGold expressed concern to me about it being his first event with “top players”, but in truth I think he was dealt a very lucky hand in that regard. Joshman and Bbatts are as affable as they come. Zasa is local, and Logan is legacy local to the area (I know that sounds different than complimenting them, and they are both cool in general, but nobody is a diva at home). MOF and Panko are completely unpretentious. Colbol is an angel. I have sworn a blood oath to never hassle TOs without extremely good cause and welcome any of them that I am unkind towards to beat me up without retaliation. The only “top players” that I didn’t really know what to expect from before the event started were Eve and Kevin Maples, who I still don’t know (barely talked to them, didn’t get to play sadly), but they seemed great. That is by no means an exhaustive list of all the good players at the event, so please do not hate me if your name was not listed. There are absolutely players in the broader Melee scene that can be a little hard to deal with due to their egos or idiosyncrasies, but none of them were present at Mountain Mania. If some show up next time, I can only offer JGold my time honored advice: burn them at the stake.\nIn terms of the bracket, the obvious standout is definitely Logan. He blazed a dominant path through loser’s bracket towards second as the 9th seed, losing only to Joshman and 3-0ing all of his opponents besides Colbol, who he got his first victory against 3-1. I was not terribly surprised by this; Logan’s relative inactivity made him very tricky to seed, but his recent results in Philadelphia made it obvious to me he had been playing and likely hadn’t lost a step. Seeing him in action, I think we can all agree the opposite is true. Kevin Maples also had a great run, beating Bbatts and Colbol to make WFs and get 3rd as the 8th seed. Again, given his dominance in his stacked home region, I wasn’t too surprised. I also made 2 upsets en route to 4th place. In terms of unusual placings in the other direction, MOF got upset early in winners by Fox standout JKJ and then ran into an ICs boogeyman in the form of Bbatts in loser’s. JKJ is admittedly a surprising loss for MOF, but part of playing Ice Climbers is that sometimes you will have to play the top 40 Peach for 9th, and so you get 9th. There is no shame in it.\nPersonal I came into Mountain Mania with pretty mixed feelings. On one hand, I had done no specific prep for the event, but on the other I was excited to go to an event for the first time a while, and my personal life wasn’t particularly chaotic leading up to it. I was also experimenting playing without headphones for the first time in a long time (I ended up putting them back on later) with a new mental approach to dealing with crowds. Those mental tricks worked great for not getting tilted, but ultimately I think I still got a little distracted at points and will stick with noise canceling as my crowd antidote of choice.\nOne other thing I will say unrelated to the event and is purely personal to me is that it renewed my commitment to masking at larger events. It was 120 something people in a relatively small space, and so it should not be a surprise to me as someone with a (mildly) weakened immune system that I got sick afterwards. I did not mask because…I didn’t? I honestly don’t even have a reason. I had N95 masks in my bag and just made a bad choice.\nAs for the actual gameplay\u0026hellip;\nDoubles was really interesting. I teamed with MOF and while I don’t think we performed terribly well as a team (Marth/ICs is incredibly tricky, and it was our first time running it), it was obvious she was a very solid player in doubles and managed to carry at points. Unfortunately, I just think there are too many team comps that Marth/Climbers just can’t deal well with or at the very least would need a lot of practice and planning to manage. In particular, we repeatedly ran into a situation where I would be stuck behind her shield as the opposing team pressured her. We disagreed on what to do about that (she wanted me to jump in, I did not have an answer but thought jumping in would definitely end poorly), and I did a very bad job of communicating my reasoning/intended course of action. I will work to be better about that in the future, because being a frustrating, uncooperative teammate is the worst thing you can be, much worse than an inadequately skilled one. Regardless, I still very much appreciated the opportunity to team.\nI don’t remember any of my singles sets before playing Meat. I played two, and one of them was a Marth ditto. My opponents were lovely individuals but I’m pretty certain I lost 2 stocks collectively in those sets. I do not mean to call those players bad or unworthy of attention, but sickness has cost me a bit of time/memory, and it’s just hard to remember every set after so many.\nMeat was the last set to make it out of pools for me. He is a Marth main I have known for some time but hadn’t played in a tournament either ever or in \u0026gt;4 years, I’m not sure. Regardless, this was a pretty standard Marth ditto set, but upon reviewing the VOD I do think I could stand to do less walling aerials in the ditto. It’s a pretty default pattern I take when playing someone I think I’m just a little higher level than, and it typically works in that situation, but for the ditto in particular I should be more disciplined about mitigating risk and playing to my win conditions regardless of who I’m facing. This propensity would come back to haunt me later in my set with Logan. Otherwise, I think I mostly was just a step ahead in this set, particularly with regards to speed and positioning. I could have done a better job at calling out double jump to ledge, but was content to let my higher number of openings and better control of center carry the day.\nMy next set was with SDeems, and one that I was very much anticipating. I think SDeems is really good at Melee, and honestly just a few big travel wins away from a breakout, but unfortunately I don’t think his Marth matchup was on point that Saturday. It felt like he froze a little bit in the repeated crossup/shield/grab/spotdodge game, to the point that I even began seeking that situation despite typically avoiding it vs Sheik. He also floundered against crossup in general, employing neither than uptilts nor the nairs I typically would expect to counter it. Besides that, I did a good job of hitting very hard in the first game (we struck to Yoshi’s which facilitated this. I believe that this is an error for Sheik and that they should go FoD), and kind of hit a blow out game two, just winning neutral repeatedly and juggling for massive damage (port 4 helped significantly with this, and this was the only port 4 I would win all day). Most of all, I was proud of my edgeguards in this set, not because they were anywhere near ideal, but because I actually went for them against a legitimately threatening Sheik in tournament, and they did pay off. I unfortunately did do the thing where I let my foot off the gas after getting a lead in game three, but ultimately I was still able to take it.\nMy next set was against Colbol. This was the third set I’ve played with him, and the third set in a row I have lost game five last stock. I think my biggest shortcoming in this set came down to edgeguarding. I dropped some crucial, theoretically guaranteed edgeguards that definitely could have won it for me. I also did a very bad job of circumventing early waveshine-\u0026gt;upsmash, hitting the tech in place only once and then missing the grab afterwards. He should not be able to do that so much without being punished. I also dropped more techchases than I would have liked, but Colbol was not perfect in this regard either and I think we both played a little below our par in that area. Still, I am happy that I had the confidence to go for them when I thought it right, and just wish I had managed to stay composed and execute offstage. Other than that, I will say that this set happened at the same time as MOF/Zasa, and the NC crowd was belligerent for that one, in the way only a local crowd pretending to get excited for Puff/ICs can be. I don’t typically mind adjacent cheering from strangers (my friends’ voices get to me a 1000x more), especially since it wasn’t directly behind me, but 30+ people barking at the top of their lungs is bound to distract anyone. I am not johning about the result of the set; it undoubtedly affected Colbol as well, and I actually did a really good job of not getting tilted. However, given the volume and size of the venue space, I thought it bordered on disrespect to all the other competitors in the venue, not just me. I bring that up, frankly, to express a bit of frustration, but also to explain that this was the point I decided to go back to using headphones.\nNext, I played Syched, a strong NC Marth who is very much on the come up, having beaten Colbol at Big House recently and being one of the few players in NC that doesn’t represent an automatic bye for Zasa. I knew I was in for a battle, despite everyone mostly expecting me to win. I remember less specifics about this set than some of my others, but the standout to me was Syched’s commitment to techchasing rather than uthrowing, even with port 4 and at very juicy percents. I really disagree with this. Even though it paid off with a big three stock in his favor game three, he played almost perfectly that game, and won essentially every 50/50. But the thing is, even Logan, the godfather of techchase Marth, is an up thrower in the ditto. I truly believe the reward is just better in a great number of situations. I am not saying there isn’t a place for techchasing in the ditto (at certain percents/positions, there absolutely is) but what is the point of picking FD twice if the goal is to ground wobble anyway? It didn’t make sense to me, and I managed to escape by sliding off to the ledge repeatedly. I also felt I had a bit of an edge in the recovery department for this set, being a little more comfortable going for the low/far sweetspot and a little more consistent with the wall tech-\u0026gt;aerial. Unfortunately, I was unable to push that advantage because my edgeguarding was atrocious, letting him back for free repeatedly. I would simply watch him up b and not press dtilt. It was weird, and I have no excuse for it.\nMy next set was against Bbatts, who needs no introduction. The first game went very smoothly, with an immediate Ken combo and disastrous overextension offstage from Bbatts sealing the game for me. However, the second stock Bbatts lived to well over 200%, and I think the way I approached that situation revealed probably my biggest flaw in the MU. I generally play the “vs immortal Peach” situation somewhat poorly, and am more reticent to grab shielding Peach than I should be, particularly in center stage. At high percents, a grab is an instant corner/ledge situation, and I should be more comfortable letting the kill come to me in that position rather than trying to force it on all interactions. I instead get too antsy fishing for side B setups, and Bbatts in particular is someone I find very consistently strong at CCing them/avoiding confirms. I think that vs Peach in particular, using side b to look for kills as much as I do is a bad look, and I need to work on that. The other major issue I had in this set was getting hit by roll in downsmash, which I will say is not one I typically struggle with, but it happened a lot. I kept seeing it coming and trying to dash away too late. I need to be either faster or accept that I’m eating a mixup and throw up my shield at times. It wouldn’t have been that bad to shield; I’m pretty consistent at shield SDI and punishing it. I could have also done a better job of ledge trapping this set, and it showed that I had not been practicing it. On the flip side, I think I played my throw options well off my grabs, CC’d better than the vast majority of players vs Peach, and applied great pressure when he was on the platforms or in the corner. Turnips came up less in this set than most sets vs top Peaches, but I don’t think that should surprise anyone. Bbatts isn’t particularly averse to pulling them when he has space, but neither of us were that interested in being that far away from one another. Still, I know that is a relative weakness of mine in the MU and I should work on it, and it is one that has appeared consistently over time unlike the getting hit by roll in downsmash bit. One more thing that I don’t know if people heard was that after I took the first stock very quickly in game one, Logan exclaims “Grab said FUCK GAY PEOPLE”, and I will admit that I struggled a little bit to stay composed and not laugh. The comedic timing was just really good.\nMy next set was against Panko. 24%. LOL. LOL. LOL. …Okay I’ll be for real. After I lost to Panko at WWIII last year, I did a lesson with Mai on Marth/Puff. I was very frustrated with my record against top 100 puffs (literally had never won a set before this win on Panko), despite performing consistently pretty well in friendlies. She helped me with a good number of things, especially correcting my thinking on a key area, and I did see improvements against Puff after that lesson. However, my set with Dawson at Santa Paws the month prior had me down about how I perform against Puff in tournament once again, having played some of the sloppiest, nerviest Melee of my life. What good was improvement if I just played Like That when it matters? If I felt pressure in any of my sets at Mountain Mania, it was this one, mostly in that I desperately wanted to play solidly, win or lose. I think I mostly achieved that in regards to my gameplan and what I attempted to do, but could definitely work on my execution. I missed my only grab pivot tipper confirm of the set, was sloppy with my wavelands on the platforms multiple times, and misspaced dair techchase when I had the correct read repeatedly. My strength in the MU was in using dtilt and occasionally spaced nair/fsmash to deny Panko access to the ground game, and a variety of tricks (especially in game two) to deny him the ability to chill on side platforms. I think that if I could mesh these strengths with cleaner movement and some earlier kills (without forcing them!), I’ll really have something in the matchup. Indeed, I didn’t really have to make any real gameplan adjustments after game one, just change the fact that I got owned and outplayed incredibly hard in the player to player reads around Puff drill at low/mid percent.\nMy final set was against Logan, and although I got 3-0’d, I think I’ve learned more from reviewing the VOD on this one and contemplating Marth dittos in general than I have from a loss in a good while, so I’m glad it happened. In general, I had 2-3 main gameplay issues in this set, and then out of game issues for game three. My first major issue was not accepting that I lost the RPS for port four, and repeatedly trying to true combo Logan out of uthrow. I should not expect to get that every time. Logan is a very good player. He knows the Marth ditto and how to buffer jump out. I however did not adapt to this and chase the juggle at any point, and went for upthrow into immediate fair/uair every time. This was a pretty obvious big deal because when I did manage to catch his jump in similar situations or get a juicy launcher in this set, I was able to take it pretty far consistently. My other major issue was getting hit by fsmash when Logan was in the corner. Going into the set, the only real read I had from playing him a while ago was that he liked to force the fsmash vs grab 50/50 while you’re in the corner because the reward is so strong. It turns out that the reward for tipper fsmash on your opponent is strong regardless of where on the stage you get it (especially on dashback DI), and I was not prepared. He found this probably 4 times throughout the set, and it mattered hugely each one. Typically when I corner enemy Marth, I’m very careful to play around immediate ledgedash options, fair from ledge, dash attack, and occasionally jump out. I’m also pretty aware of the trick where you NIL/barely waveland on and then fsmash, since I do it a good deal myself. Logan would instead take the space I gave him in respect for/expecting those other options, and then come a small way onto stage and then tipper me, often taking my stock. The other thing that jumped out to me in this set is that Logan would occasionally miss the DI on f throw near center, and I did not punish it as hard as I could have. It’s not something I ever want to depend on people missing, but on the occasion that they do you can take it very far if you’re ready for it, and I was not. Otherwise, the set was more or less what I was expecting, with Logan playing a slightly swingier neutral than mine and being very strong off the hit. I also edgeguarded pretty poorly in this set, but seeing as this is the third Marth ditto I’ve written about in this piece, I won’t go into it here. Sadly, I finally did get a little tilted with the crowd by the end of this set, and fell to pieces mentally near the beginning of game three. This is on me, and I will do my best to keep improving in this regard in the future.\nOverall, despite getting a couple of upsets, I think this was a very “par” tournament for me in terms of my play. I certainly didn’t execute up to an unusually high standard, and I think the improvements demonstrated in the Puff MU were ones that I had mastered in friendlies months ago finally coming to fruition in bracket. Still, I was grateful for the opportunity to compete, and have almost exclusively positive things to say about the event and NC Melee.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/mountain_mania/","summary":"","title":"Mountain Mania"},{"content":"I am writing this piece for both the purpose of personal reflection, as well as to give insight on what it is like to be an entirely self-funded Melee player from a smaller scene. Obviously, my challenges are not unique. There are plenty of strong players from relatively weak regions, and some of these regions (parts of EU, South America, AUS) are actually much more isolated from strong national/international scenes than mine. I also have the advantage of reasonable access to strong competition via North American netplay, although my particular location does not have the best internet (if you’re moving and considering Melee at all, one of your priorities should be access to an ISP that is not Spectrum). There is also an aspect of privilege in being from a weaker region in that I am able to recoup some of my costs by winning tournaments without having to beat a top 15 player. I earned about 1900 dollars from playing Melee this year, which, while nothing gobsmacking, is not an insignificant sum for a hobby. I estimate that I spent around 3800-4000 dollars on traveling/competing this year, which would put my net total costs at roughly two thousand dollars to be an active competitor. Melee is my only cash-negative hobby I spend any significant amount on, and while I recognize that not everyone has two thousand dollars of purely discretionary income to spend, I think that is actually a relatively small sum for the amount I have been able to travel, see new things, and meet new people. All in all, I attended 23 weekend tournaments ranging from small Tennessee monthlies to super majors this year, as well as a smattering of locals. To say that I have been active this year would be an understatement, and a part of me questions the schedules we seem to expect of players to be considered “active”, especially given that the majority of us are self-funded like me. I have listed all of my events and a (rough) breakdown of these costs and payouts as well at the end of this document for those curious.\nIn terms of the actual experience of traveling and competing so much, it is a strange mixture of loneliness and hyper sociality. As a pretty textbook introvert, going to a Melee tournament is an incredible shift in pace from my normal day to day. I work from home in a semi-isolated rural community with my two dogs and little other outside interaction. Much of my “social” life outside of Melee (and the friends I’ve made as a result) is conducted via mandatory Zoom call. Going to a tournament then, which is at its core a large gathering of people with a common interest, is simultaneously wondrous and exhausting. It is the only time I get to share my passion with those who experience it as intensely as I do, but at the same time there is the stress of constant interaction in addition to the typical physical stressors (strange food, less sleep, competition anxiety) that characterize most competitive travel. There was a stretch in late September- October where I competed five weekends in a row, and I have to say: As much as I like to mock twitter users for overuse of very online phrases like “social battery”, mine was pretty drained by the end of all that. Indeed, at the beginning of the year, I was eagerly looking forward to each event, and the lesser frequency of my travel schedule made it so that as soon as one was over, I was longing for the next one, especially if I wanted to redeem a weak performance. By contrast, when Dreamhack rolled around at year’s end, I was looking forward to being done with it all as much as the event itself. As for the loneliness, for me it is in the travel itself. Other people from my region do not travel as much as me, and the other players in my town barely do so at all (caveat: No one is obligated to travel for the game. This is not intended as a callout in any way whatsoever). This means that a very large portion of travel is done solo, through airports and long drives for days at a time by myself. I solo drove to Combo Breaker (7.5hrs), Big House (9hrs), and Dreamhack (5hrs) this year, as well as doing all my flights (4) on my own. There is something much more intensely lonely about solo travel than sitting at home, and a piece exploring why could probably fill a book, but suffice it to say that this too takes a toll, just in a different way than the interpersonal stimulation of events. Still, to be able to go to so much was a blessing, and I recognize that the vast majority of competitors cannot say that they have had the same opportunities.\nIn terms of results, I did not achieve my goals for the year. Indeed, I will likely be ranked lower on the top 100 this year than I was last year, which will definitely sting. I made a quiet goal in 2022 to reach top 50, and while I knew it was lofty, I also watched people I historically all but ran up the score against reach it, so I knew that it was at least possible. When I missed it, I took solace in the fact that, by putting in plenty of work and continuing to progress, I would more than likely achieve it next year…right? Ha. Given my wins/placings, I wouldn’t be surprised to wind up somewhere in the mids 70s-mid 80s, down from 67th. Not at all what I was hoping for, and honestly, outright worse than what I considered my most reasonable expectations.\nThis leads me to the question: Why did this happen? It’s easy, seductive even, to ascribe things to the luck of the draw, and say that I simply didn’t play well on tournament days. And that’s probably true to some extent. However, as a competitor it is always better to focus on the issues that I can change than to dwell on those I cannot, and it would demonstrate a shocking lack of not only introspection but frankly intelligence if I couldn’t point to at least some other issues that impacted my performance.\nThe most obvious one to me that others may not see is how much more I worked in 2023. My job was more demanding this year than the previous two by a significant margin, and so despite my excellent attendance, I had less hours of free time at home to play than I did in 2021/22. However, according to my Slippi stats, the total year-end difference really wasn’t that big, and given my increased activity level this year, I’m not even sure that I actually played less total Melee. If inadequate time invested were the issue, I think this would indicate needing to play more in general to break through to the next level (totally possible), not life pulling me away from the game and not getting the hours. This leads me to believe that the problem is more likely a matter of how I put in the time, not the amount.\nThe second, and one that I have publicly talked about before, is my specific weakness as a competitor with playing hard sets early on. I don’t know if it’s because I came up playing a full doubles and PM bracket before my harder Melee matches, but I really struggle if I have to play strong competition in my first few sets of the day. It is to the point that I think anyone reading this that does not know me would assume that I am exaggerating or making excuses, but the pattern has been consistent and even extreme for years now. I felt it hard at Dreamhack, Santa Paws, and finals day of Combo Breaker this year, and fell short in sets that I feel confident could have gone very differently under slightly different circumstances.\nLastly, I had an unfortunate amount of technical difficulties this year. I know controller johns are as old as the game itself, and at this point no one wants to hear them, but my phob started randomly z jumping and lightshielding with z presses in March right before Kill Roy Vol 7 and Collision. I had no adequate backup controller available, and it absolutely impacted my performance at those events in a massive way. My controller also got knocked off the desk and ceased working at Now UC Me in Cincinnati right before I played Free Palestine, leading me to DQ out of the event after a pretty pitiful set. My headphone setup also broke at Riptide, and then again had further difficulties during Santa Paws and Dreamhack. Ultimately, it is my responsibility as a competitor to show up at the tournament with adequate equipment, and my decision when I play it out anyway, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel like I had a pretty rough run of bad luck on this front.\nHow then do I plan on changing these results? If my current habits are bringing me results that are unacceptable, then they must change. I have the controller issue relatively well figured out; I now have a backup controller that I feel reasonably confident in, and play on it often enough that it doesn’t feel alien. I have also ordered a new headphone amplifier and a backup for that, which should round out my equipment issues. The one that will take the most energy to change is undoubtedly my practice habits. I get enough of my Melee in during “work hours” where I might have to stop on a dime to know that it will never be feasible to just discard unranked entirely. Instead, I must play it with greater focus and specific goals, which is why I am now keeping a Google document of both general goals for me as a player and specific goals I have in each major matchup. That also means being willing to let go of my ego in “beating” randoms (something I’ve been better about lately), and also practicing constructive self-respect in simply leaving against players who make me too unhappy to concentrate. The other night I tortured myself against an utterly degenerate Falco player and then later a Kirby for nearly an hour. Neither of them ever really did anything (in the Kirby’s case, could do anything) that beat looking at the screen harder. Wasting my time with that is not discipline. It is self-flagellation. As for my issue with needing an excessive number of ramp-up sets, I still have no answers. I have a couple of ideas (money matches before bracket, experimenting with no warm up at locals/monthlies), but in truth nothing I have real confidence in. I could also just choose not to go to tournaments that are scheduled like that, but in all honesty I think that’s a pretty lame solution and would mean missing out on some awesome events.\nAll of this said, I recognize that results are not the ultimate arbiter of skill. I know with absolute assurance that I am a much better player now than I was at the beginning of 2023, and VOD review backs me up on that. I will continue on into 2024 with confidence that the changes I make will yield different results, and make them I shall. I will not participate in the madness of expecting altered results without altered input. I say that knowing that is as much as a warning to myself as it is a declaration to others. It will be easy and tempting to fall back into old habits, but I must persevere in my plans for change.\nCosts/Payouts Breakdown Costs Genesis- 650 Collision- 500 Combo Breaker- 600 The Big House- 900 (very high, lots of unplanned incidentals) Riptide- 500 Santa Paws- 300 DHATL- 400 (very very expensive for what it was but I def threw my hands up and said “whatever’ multiple times, could have been cheaper) Various monthlies I went negative at- 150 Cost=4000~ I typically stay in the venue hotel unless I can find one just massively cheaper. I pretty much never eat 3 meals a day, but do spend more than I really need to on food to experience loca/regional recommendations. I do tend to stay 3-5 people in a room at majors to keep costs down. I always take the cheapest flights available unless the difference between a direct/non-red eye is fairly small. Some of these flights I paid in credit card points, but recorded here as if I had not to give people an idea of total costs. All in all, I think I do things cheaply by normal people standards but pretty middle of the road by smash player standards, given some of the legendary stories of cost cutting I have heard.\nEst Winnings ETSUcon: 350\nCC#7: 50\nSHL 13: 50\nRR #3: 50\nRR #1: 50\nCC11: 125\nLuigi’s Mansion: 350\nWMILE #2: 250\nDNG: 100\nRaiser M Series: 400\nAssorted Weeklies/Netplay Events: 175\nWinnings: 1900~\nTotal cost: 2100~\nEvents attended Weeklies 5x BG weekly 3x Rockettown weekly Smashing Grounds 29.4 (Shine Prelocal) Cat5 Combos #2 (Collision Prelocal) Weekend tournaments Genesis 9: 1/20 - 1/22 Cardinal Collision #7: 2/4 (KY Monthly)* DNG Showdown: 02/11 (KY Monthly)* Kill Roy Vol 6: 3/4 Collision 2023: 3/10 - 3/12 Short Hop Lazer 13: 3/18 (TN Monthly)* ETSUcon 2023: 4/1* Rockettown Rumbe #1: 4/22* Combo Breaker 2023: 5/26 - 5/28 (Had COVID virtually all of June, notably missed Tipped Off) Rockettown Rumble #3: 7/1 (TN Monthly)* Now UC Me: 7/22 WWIII: 7/29 Shine 2023: 8/25 - 8/27 Riptide 2023: 9/8 - 9/10 Cardinal Collision 11: 9/16 (KY Monthly)* TN Arcadian 2023 (Doubles/Spectator): 9/30 Kill Roy Vol 7: 10/7 WMILE 2: 10/14 (TN Monthly)* The Big House 11: 10/20 - 10/22 Luigi’s Mansion: 10/28* Hard Knox Melee: 11/25 (TN Monthly)* Santa Paws: 12/09 - 12/11 DHATL: 12/16 - 12/17 * = won the event\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/2023_in_review/","summary":"","title":"A Year In Review: 2023"},{"content":"I am writing this piece to talk about Santa Paws, the nature of the event, the misfortunes that befell it, and the mistakes that it made that I see other events make in the Melee community. I wish to preface this piece with two disclaimers: Firstly, I claim no knowledge of the inner workings of the Ultimate scene or how the event was viewed from within it, nor am I a TO. This is purely from the perspective of a long(ish) time, very active Melee competitor who very occasionally helps out with events. I am not an experienced TO and do not claim any such credentials. Secondly, I do not in any way think the organizers did a bad job. I saw nothing on the floor or before the event to suggest that Linkstain or Skrat that suggested to me that they were negligent or unskilled in their handling of the event. There was a lot of hard work, passion, and savvy behind the event, and there should be pride taken in providing it to the community, especially in such an underserved region.\nI will begin this piece in the one area in which I do think there was a dearth of either planning or competence: The audio/video and stream production. Simply put, it was very bad. The lighting on stage/stream was such that players’ faces were half obscured in darkness, and this was very painfully highlighted by Professor Pro looking somewhat akin to a floating void on stage with a shiny forehead. That is not what Prof looks like. He looks like a perfectly normal gentleman. In a locale where people are already extra on edge about experiencing prejudice. it is absolutely not the place to have production mishaps of that variety. Furthermore, it frankly sucked that the commentary station was physically touching the stage. Players could hear the commentary (which was by no means excessively loud) while playing, which is never an ideal situation for anyone to be in, as it creates an awkward dilemma for commentators in addition to distracting players. Another issue was that the basic Windows sounds played loudly from the PA system for pretty much the entire event. Not the biggest problem, but it did add to the vibe of unprofessionalism. All of that happened in addition to the more publicized issue with the TV on which attendees could watch the stream going down for long stretches at times. I do not know who did the production for this event, but I have to imagine they were either met with nigh insurmountable technical difficulties (very plausible given the venue) or were just completely inexperienced putting on something of this scale.\nThe other major issue was the venue. Making no bones about it, Garrett Coliseum should have been condemned years ago. It had plenty of space, and there was an abundance of setups (partially explained by the event expecting a greater turnout, but it was not a great place to be. Those bathrooms were in dire need of renovation before I was born, and I am old enough to have fathered some of the Ultimate players I see at events. For anyone that didn’t go: If you’ve ever used the sketchy bathrooms on the side of the highway that have blue lights to prevent addicts from shooting up in them, this was much worse. I heard rumblings that Linkstain got the venue for free, in which case it’s difficult to blame anyone for the selection, but I also heard rumors that she ended up having to pay top dollar for it, and if that’s the case, a plague upon anyone expecting more than a pittance for the right to use it. A truly awful venue that cannot be redone fast enough.\nGetting past all of that however, I want to dive into what I think are some of the major reasons why Santa Paws was not as big (in terms of total attendance) as I think it was intending to be, at least in terms of the Melee community. I don’t think it is any secret that an event flying in Jmook, Cody, Aklo, Kodorin, etc. was aiming for \u0026gt; 130 entrants, and I have a lot of thoughts on why that might be the case.\nFirstly on this point, the primary issue was undoubtedly with holding the tournament in Montgomery Alabama. I think some people will look at Montgomery in retrospect and say that the city itself was the problem, but in truth I think that is applying hindsight in an unfair way. Very few people outside of AL (myself included) were familiar with Montgomery before the event, And besides, almost all of us have been to less-than-bustling cities to play Melee at this point. No, instead I think there were two main issues here: difficulty of travel to the city and perceptions of the South.\nThe first issue is the more material, and the reason why I hope majors avoid places like Montgomery in the future. Simply put, if you didn’t already live in a specific sub-region of the American South, getting to Montgomery AL is wildly inconvenient. Well over an hour from any major airport, and with no cheap, useful public transit between it and said airport, most people I saw who flew in relied on the generosity of Alabama Smash to get them from Birmingham to Montgomery. This may work for the cadre of top players the event invited, but it is not at all a viable strategy for an event. Some may point out similarities to Riptide, but I would submit that that is not a fair comparison. Riptide inherited the legacy of the already highly successful Smash n Splash series, and more importantly provides very clear, reasonably priced directions for anyone flying in on how to use transit to get to Sandusky. By contrast, Santa Paws provided…a discount link for car rental (irrelevant to the vast majority of Ult players, a lot of Melee players, and not at all what people are looking for.) You do not have to be wealthy or possess clout to get a ride to Riptide, just read and follow directions like a normal human being. By contrast, there were no such services available at Santa Paws, and it is just not a fair expectation to have people fly 80 miles away from their final destination and then expect them to just figure it out.\nSecondly, one has to grapple with negative preconceptions of the part of the country Montgomery is in. It is true that the South is the most conservative region of the US, and the legal policies that are discussed and sometimes even passed in my home region fill me with shame. I promise you all: not everywhere in the South is Daytona.\nAs another point, I think I would be remiss not to mention that I think there might have been miscalculations made about the draw of the charity theme of the event. Santa Paws was intended to benefit the Montgomery County Humane Society, and specifically had multiple adoptable dogs moving around the venue. I personally found this beyond precious and a truly heartwarming thing, but my experience with the scene at large leads me to question whether it is a cause that smash players really care about, and whether it was a wise one to adopt. For lack of a better way to put it, I think the smash scene at large suffers from a sort of twitter-leftism syndrome, wherein there is a tendency to view activism as a zero sum game, and only the most important social causes are deemed worthy of attention. As though anything that is not crying out for justice for Palestinian children somehow takes food out of their mouths. I cannot make the members of the Melee scene understand that “Why aren’t you doing more important good over here?” is not an appropriate response when observing the doing of good. I can only observe the trend and adjust my expectations accordingly. Shelter dogs are not The Thing, and their wellbeing is unlikely to move the groupthink needle in our particular cohort. More importantly, I cannot help but feel bad for dogs that might be adopted at a smash tournament. As we all should know, adopting an animal is not something that should be done as an impulse decision\nAnd while that knowledge pains my heart, I cannot ignore that it is true.\nLastly, I will say that the saving grace of the South is, as ever, the food. I went to two restaurants in Montgomery and both were stellar. I have no idea what Hugs was complaining about on Twitter, but in all honesty I think his dissatisfaction with being unable to find a kitschy low sq footage novel concept spot with a lot of Yelp reviews says more about foodie culture than the actual quality of the food. In short: skill issue. By contrast, I think I saw Chroma once all weekend without a Cookout milkshake in hand, and my heart was warmed by that show of solidarity (becoming fat like us).\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/santa_paws/","summary":"","title":"Santa Paws"},{"content":"Riptide 2023\nEVENT Riptide 2023 was one of the best tournaments I have ever had the pleasure of entering. I legitimately cannot think of a single criticism that does not amount to basically a nitpick, and I mean that with no reservations. The scheduling, the streaming, the pools structure, the TOing, the organizing…it was basically perfect. For those that were unaware, the event was run in a “rolling waves” style, where R1 and R2 pools were played back to back for each group of players, I.E. if you had R1 pools at noon, you had R2 pools at 2 as a different group began their R1. I have been told that this style of pools is harder logistically to pull off, but from the smoothness with which things ran from my perspective as a competitor, I wouldn’t have guessed it. This eliminated one of my major criticisms from last year, which was that competitors on day 2 and 3 would sometimes have situations like Jmook had where he played me before 10am and then Hbox at almost 10pm. Additionally, last year I had complaints about the ruleset with things like stadium transformations, FD starter, and other Panda/Nintendo generated headaches. While I’m not sure it’s right to credit the staff here, those things were gone, and as a result the tournament was more pleasant. In terms of any specific people to highlight, I mostly dealt with Unsure whenever I had questions/issues and he was a joy to work with as always, but at this point I doubt that’s news to anyone that’s ever been to the Midwest.\nFurthermore, I should highlight the big positive that wasn’t particularly relevant to me, but was a huge deal for other competitors: Riptide is held at a water park resort. The world’s largest indoor one in fact, a tidbit they will not let you forget. The rooms are barely at all more expensive than at most majors, and in return attendees get access to a massive water park. This year the TOs went above and beyond and even reserved the park for attendees for after hours on Saturday. As I don’t love swimming, I can’t comment on this in detail, but I know for some it is one of the main draws of the event.\nFor negatives, I will start the main one: Riptide is held in Sandusky Ohio. If you come to tournaments to do things other than play/watch Melee (weird) or in this case swim (weird, but in this case my weird), you will not like Riptide. Sandusky is one of the most bare bones tourist trap towns on the planet, and other than a few decent places to eat (shoutouts to The Sandusky Bay Pancake House and Danny Boy’s), there really isn’t much of anything there. Additionally, if you flew into the tournament and do not have friends that drove, getting to those places to eat will cost you a rideshare fee, as they are just a little too far to walk regularly (although they are a pretty short drive). That being said, the food in the Kalahari is passable but insanely expensive, so even with the rideshare cost factored in, most will want to leave the resort to eat. I also personally find the beds in the Kalahari weirdly uncomfortable, but that one is probably just me.\nAs for what other negatives I can think of: Some people don’t like that rolling waves structure of pools, preferring instead longer prep times for their second wave, but in all honesty that is a matter of taste (and for my personal tastes, I greatly prefer to play the sets out and maintain momentum), and I do think they ultimately lead to less arduous schedules for the players who go deep in bracket as I outlined above. Some people also might not have liked it that there was a 6pm/8pm wave instead of a 10am/noon wave, but I think that too is a matter of taste. Personally, I’m not a fan of being in either the 6pm or 10am wave, but if I had to choose, I’d pick 6pm, and the amount of complaints I have heard about 10am in the past make me think I’m not in the minority. Lastly, I suppose some people may have preferred a little more “bold” structuring or switching things up somehow, like incorporating swiss or having a quad as the main stream like at Shine this year. Honestly though, the fact that I’m scraping that far down the bottom of the barrel for critique should tell you everything you need to know about how good Riptide was this year, and the day that all we can bash every tournament for is not pushing the envelope hard enough is the day I quit writing these.\nAs for the bracket itself, the absence of most of our usual juggernauts made it interesting. I think most people expected things to come down to Moky vs Wizzrobe/Plup, but in the end it was the latter two in grands, playing an electrifying game 10 set that I think will go down in Melee history. Obviously, one of the biggest takeaways from this event is that Wizzy has still got it, which is actually pretty scary from where I’m watching because some of his signature “Wizzrobe” stuff (techchasing, certain edgeguards) actually looked notably worse than usual. . Another good run was Llod, who after losing early to gahtzu ran it all the way back to third place, taking out Moky, Axe, amsa, Polish, Flash, and myself in the process, only falling game five to Wizzy. Kind of an insane run now that I write it down. However, two of the biggest stars of the event have to be bbatts and Ben, who rampaged through bracket to finish 7th and 5th respectively, with bbatts scoring wins on Essy, Zamu, Magi, and Aklo (!!!), with Ben getting dubs on None, Flash, Zuppy, and Bbatts. The other breakout star was Michigan’s own Ossify, who defeated Michael, Panda, and Ginger to make top 16 before losing to None game 5 in one of the most thrilling sets I’ve ever seen off stream. When the slippi vods for that one come out, do yourself a favor and watch: It’s peak game 5 last stock Melee. Lastly for notable results, Acid beat JCAM in winner’s round two which was…wild. I feel bad emphasizing how crazy of an upset that is because Acid is a friend, but a player of JCAM’s caliber losing round two at a major is something that is simply not supposed to happen. He ran it back to a very respectable finish though, taking out Holiday and Spinda before falling to None who had been (mildly) upset by Ben in the round before.\nPERSONAL This event was weird for me in terms of performance. I technically underperformed, getting 25th while seeded to make 17th, but at the same time I only lost to Axe and Llod, two fantastic players who are rated 50+ spots higher than me. Out of game, I had a great weekend with my friends, but was plagued with sleep and equipment issues, with my headphone amp starting to go out and missing so much sleep that I’m still tired now three days later after I got home. A weekend of highs and lows, but I can’t shake the notion that if I somehow solve my sleep woes, majors will reach a whole new level of both productivity and fun.\nI didn’t make it to the prelocal for this event, but I got to play tons of fun friendlies vs JCAM, Bbatts, Sirmeris, Acid, Seal, Lowercasehero, Reeve, JDMH, Palika (bro let’s just be cool and not like we are on unranked now okay?), and many more. The ones vs Bbatts were particularly entertaining; I don’t think I’ve ever been 3 and 4 stocked by a Peach player and then done it back to them so many times, and it was honestly super cool to see a vision of the MU that wasn’t a hard grind.\nAs for how my actual sets, the first was against a spacie player called Eddie who I did not know. He moved fairly well, but got 4 stocked/jv 4 stocked both games, which is an unfortunate reality of facing a t100 Marth for a lower mid level space animal at a major. It’s not always the most fun for them, but it’s how the Melee ecosystem works, for better or worse.\nNext round I played Tr4shJ4ck, a box peach player from Minnesota. I harbor no ill will towards her whatsoever, but I will not hold back my feelings about set: I have never been more confident in my life that box controllers are not okay. Peach on the box is a completely different MU than Peach on GCC. The ground based, dash dancing neutral that GCC Peach is forced to play vs Marth does not have to exist with box Peach, and I was forced to do what felt like making up a new MU on the fly. My gameplan against Peach isn’t perfect, but it is quite good. It was all but useless here, and to make matters worse my headphones were rapidly cutting in and out throughout the set which was very distracting. I only barely won by getting lucky with stray aerials and good player-ing my way through some hard punishes game three. It is a travesty that we allow such landscape altering devices to exist essentially without regulation in our scene, and if I ever quit playing Melee, it will be either because I simply do not find it fun anymore or because I am so completely disgusted by what we have allowed the controller arms race to do. To everyone who thinks we cannot ban digital controllers because they have existed for too long and too many use them: Why? It becomes more obvious every day that they enable and encourage radically different gameplay than is performed on a GCC, and if I have to sit through one more twitter apologist explaining how um ackshually this box tech is totally doable on GCC if you remap all the buttons and use a double reverse unforbidden Setchi claw grip, I swear I will force feed them an unmodded OEM (not serious, but it’s sad that I have to write that disclaimer).\nMy next set was vs Holiday, an Ohio Sheik (formerly Fox) that I hadn’t had the opportunity to play in quite a while. It was a fun set, even though I continued to have the aforementioned issues with my headphones rig (I switched from headphones to IEMs here but it turned out the main issue was with my amp). His movement was as crispy as ever, but he struggled a little more getting the utmost out of his openings vs some of my DI/SDI and general counterplay, which I think opened things up enough for me that I was able to generally hit harder and win the set that way. For my part, my big issue with this set was edgeguards. I edgeguarded terribly, doing the thing where I stay on stage and threaten nothing because I am nervous in tournament, as well as not even executing my onstage edgeguards correctly. If I can shore that up, I feel good about my chances against high level Sheiks, but if not I will be taking Ls in the near future. It’s just that important of a factor.\nNext I played Axe, AKA the hardest possible draw for a Marth player. I got 3-0d, which was pretty disappointing for me given that I have a pretty rich background playing vs Pikachu. However, when I consider that backgrounded ended \u0026gt;3 years ago, I find that I can be a little kinder in my self-assessment, especially given how rapidly I started to do better throughout the set. Game one was a three stock, and game three was pretty much even until I SD’d at low percent last stock. I didn’t really feel like there were major holes in my gameplan, just hesitation, imperfections, and of course, getting outplayed. In particular, I felt like I would recognize the need to fair just a hair too late, or recognize it on time and then flub. That was HUGE in neutral, and if you watch Zain, perhaps his single biggest tool. Axe played very airborne this set, so I wasn’t able to impose my will with dtilt as much as normal, and so fairing well was make or break. In terms of the outplays, I was really impressed with Axe’s use of down smash. I have sometimes made fun of Axe in the past for mashing dsmash like a low level Peach player to get pop ups/knockdowns at low percent (since Pikachu struggles so hard with CC and has a tiny grab), but in this set he used it masterfully as an overshoot and antiair. Overshooting with it in particular is a hard outplay that is difficult to execute because of the size/nature of the hitbox, which really goes to show you both how good Axe is and that he is continuing to develop even at this stage of his career. I also felt like I was mostly ready for/correct in how to deal with his crossup nair “spam”, but he is the known as the best at it for a reason, and had layers of counterplay to answer my counterplay. While I didn’t feel badly out of my depth dealing with it or anything like that, I did feel like the best option would have been to use fair much better and minimize it happening in the first place.\nNext I played Faust in loser’s, a very good Ontario Puff I’ve known for a long time. This set felt a bit lose-lose for me, because I was the higher seeded player and knew that he had just gotten back from a camp and would not be at his sharpest. It was also, however, a chance to pressure test some of the stuff I had been working on vs Puff. After my loss to Panko at WHW, I did a lesson with Mai on fighting Puff, mainly focused on dealing with grounded Puff. My two main takeaways were mostly to do with how to look for grab in a way that ran less risk of fsmash/dash attack and how to use dtilt properly to force jumps. I think I did a really good job of the latter in this set, but I apparently need more work on the former, as I got hit with those a lot here and found minimal grabs. Still, I recognize the manner in which I played those situations was wrong, which is a start. In the end, I was strong enough vs aerial Puff and at recovering to edge it out in 4 games. I think the recoveries would have been the biggest difference if Faust were in better shape (so to speak), as he did drop a couple of edgeguards that surprised me.\nMy last set was against Llod. I whined on twitter that he pulled a lot of stitch faces, but now that I have the benefit of more sober hindsight and a rewatch I recognize…that I was absolutely right. God I hate root vegetables. Game one should have been closer than it was because the fsmash that killed him on stock three was meant to be a fall through fair (it would have hit but not killed relatively early, which is big vs Peach), but it was still a two stock in my favor. Game two was neck and neck until the stitches started to hit, which ended up in the game going solidly in Llod’s favor. I was still in it at that point, and thought to myself “hey now DL is out of the way”. Game three was where my mental fortitude broke after getting hit with yet another stitch for nearly a full stock. I should have taken him back to FD after that and continued running my gameplan, as it was mostly working, but instead I went to YS in a desperate attempt to force closer engagements and stop turnip pulls. Looking back, it was definitely the wrong choice. I wasn’t getting a ton off platforms in this set, and was earning my bread primarily on the strength of my dash dance options at middle distance and extended “punishes”born of juggling. FD was the right choice; I just needed to navigate the turnips and keep my composure a little better. In terms of what I learned from this set, the most positive takeaway is that I think my general gameplan vs Peach is mostly there. The only real fundamental flaw in my gameplay I noticed was that my anti-turnip play lacks nuance/layers of depth compared to players like Rishi (I basically only cc, powershield, and nair turnips in neutral, and I don’t think I do the nair very well/the powershield is only reliable in specific spots). I don’t navigate the situation well at higher percents without access to CC and CLEARLY I don’t navigate special turnips as well as I should. Otherwise, I think my approach to the neutral game is pretty close to being on the money, and I mostly only lose it when I get hard outplayed. In terms of punish game, I need to do a better job of distinguishing between dash attack DI and aerial DI (on fthrow). Most Peaches don’t mix them up as well as Llod, and while I did a good job of recognizing when he wouldn’t need to tech, I didn’t always cover it with aerial/regrab/dash attack appropriately. I also kept doing the thing where I try to repeatedly down air Peach in tech/missed tech situations. This is dumb and bad. She is not Puff. I should techchase her normally and toss her into the corner/set up throw mixups. I noted this in my writeup about playing Polish over a year ago and I’m still over here doing it like a moron.\nTakeaways for myself for the event Research turnip counterplay more Do not dair techchase Peach Grind throw DI recognition vs Peach, and more thoroughly lab down throw traps Find quality (NOT unranked) Pikachu practice Force myself to edgeguard Sheik better in tourney. ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/riptide_2023/","summary":"","title":"Riptide 2023"},{"content":"EVENT Shine 2022 was probably the most player-friendly major I’ve ever been to. It was my fourth major (Big House 7, SSC 2019, and Big House 9), and the reason for this was simple: setups, setups, and setups. I’m not really sure why Ultimate players go to tournaments; entry numbers for ult were almost the same as Melee for this event, and they appeared to have plenty of setups, but their setups seemed to receive immensely less use. By contrast, there were times where, despite having over 100 setups for about 450 players, every melee setup was in use. In short, Melee players go to tournaments to play melee, and I wish more TOs understood this as well as the Shine TOs did. Speaking of TOing, the TOing at Shine was pretty much flawless. I don’t think I have a single complaint about how the actual event was run, and I’m usually pretty good at finding nitpicks. Things ran quickly and smoothly without an undue amount of rushing players, and even when the at-a-major Saturday bracket frenzy was going on the chaos was completely controlled.\nThe biggest negative at Shine, however, was the well publicized situation with water. One working fountain is simply not enough for a thousand person tournament. 6 dollars for a bottle of water is in fact an insulting and unfair price, no matter how nice the bottle. I’m used to venue food being exorbitantly priced (and honestly, we all should be by now) but we should not have had one water fountain (that was very far from the setups) in the venue at a time. We shouldn’t have to weigh our options with the bathroom sinks. Exceptions to the strict no outside food/drink policy should have been made for the circumstance.\nThe only other negative I can think of was how little of the doubles bracket was Bo5. I really don’t understand why. There was plenty of time, and player experience/good sets were clearly a priority with bo5 starting quite early in the singles bracket. Not a big deal, but a little odd.\nBRACKET Besides Axe’s spectacular and well-publicized run, three bracket runs I think stood out for the weekend: Panko, Mekk, and myself. I think Panko’s was the most impressive, as he was the lowest seeded out of all of us and beat Magi and Kodorin back to back. I can’t say that I was surprised at all about Magi (Panko is very underrated and Magi can definitely be a bit of a Puff loser-toer some days), but the Kodorin win floored me. Just amazing stuff, and a great weekend for him. For Mekk’s part, he managed to upset Ginger and Polish back to back, which is just incredible. I’ve heard a few people downplaying those wins since both of those players historically struggle somewhat vs Falcon, but frankly those people should shut up. Beating number 14 and number 19 in the world back to back is great for someone outside the top 30, regardless of circumstance. For my part, I also beat Polish, and then a slew of very strong, relatively unknown and underrated players (more on that later). None of this is to say other players did not perform well: Lunar Dusk, Dr Lobster, and Kalvar did quite well, to name a few, but at some point I can’t review the entire bracket for the major.\nIn terms of bad bracket runs, I think the only one that really stood out to me was Magi, who got 33rd. I honestly think she just ran into two matchups she’s relatively weak in vs 2 very underrated players (Panko as mentioned and also Lunar Dusk, the mighty Montreal ICs), and this in no way indicates a slump in her play. Ginger also did poorly for his standards, but that was more due to getting upset and then having to play Kodorin extremely early than a real “bad” tournament.\nPERSONAL For this section, I’m going to include thoughts and retrospectives about events not strictly related to the Shine brackets, including money matches, the pre-weekly etc. I know those aren’t technically part of Shine 2022, but they were part of the weekend for me and similarly fresh in my thoughts.\nOut of game, I don’t think I could have done a much worse job at Shine. I think the only meals I ate all weekend that weren’t pizza were a terribly overpriced hotel omelet, and some VERY spicy Jamaican jerk wings for dinner Friday. I tweeted about it, but please punch me if I ever order something that spicy before a tourney again. I was in great pain all of Friday night and much of Saturday. Furthermore, even including pizza I think I probably only ate around 1100 calories a day, and so was very hungry. I also slept extremely poorly this event, going to sleep late and getting up relatively early. Starving zombie with diarrhea is not a vibe I’m trying to recreate at further majors, and I need to keep this in mind next time I start to make bad life choices at a Melee tournament.\nFor doubles, I had the honor of teaming with New England native Shmeeli, who joined up with me relatively last minute about 10 days before the event. He was a pleasure to team with, but I think I will avoid Marth/Falco when possible in the future. It’s just a little too hard to kill, and I feel an enormous amount of time-based pressure to make something happen and it never works out. We ended up just playing Marth/Fox the majority of loser’s bracket, and it worked a little better. It’s a shame that the set I think we played by far the best we ended up being our last, as the strong static team of Icey/Vortex was just too much for us. Still, I was proud of our play and synergy in that set, whereas I was frustrated with it in much of the previous bracket. I’m still very much considering putting energy into a doubles Fox, and if I ever have more free time, I think I might commit. Fox is just very adjustable and absurdly powerful in the format, and I covet that greatly, as well as value doubles more than most players.\nThe Thursday pre-local was also a solid event for me, and I even had the privilege of playing most of my sets on stream. I also had the advantage of having an audio station on the stream setup, which I can definitely attribute a portion of my performance to. I normally don’t bother with my audio setup at locals/lower stakes events, but I figured why not use the one they already set up? There were no easy sets at this local, with my first opponent being the very strong Fox main Freezus (who I almost dropped game 2 to due to 2 stock swing SD on an edgeguard) and then local top 100 Marth player Kalvar, who I beat 3-1 but gained respect for in the process. I certainly didn’t lack respect for Kalvar before the event (of course), but his weirdly disparate online vs 2019/recent IRL results had me unsure of what to expect. Turned out I got a very “brain on” Marth player to face off against and had a good, competitive set. My next opponent was Chicago superstar Skerzo, who I very frustratingly lost g1 against on a sakurai combo after missing my edgeguard. Still, I managed to stay composed and take the set 3-1, even closing it with the same reaction fsmash edgeguard I had dropped to lose the first game. This set was my first time going for this reaction fsmash in tournament, so I was juiced to get it to work here. Skerzo complimented me on the fsmash as a read after the set, and I didn’t know whether to correct him because I thought doing so immediately after winning might be a bit rude. But if any CLM people read this, please tell Skerzo marth can fsmash side b reactively (on LAN with audio) and that it’s something to look out for. My WF set was against Panda, who had just upset Spark to get there. Panda did not play as well against me as he did Spark, and what’s more, every metaphorical bounce of the ball in that set seemed to go my way. Every time we played a mixup for the first time, it felt like I won it. I got almost every gimp I went for. Etc. It ended up being a somewhat dominant-looking 3-0, but I just don’t think the results in that set really reflected our relative skill levels at all. My last sets were against Spark in grands, who beat me 6-1. Honestly, the problems I had in those sets were simple and obvious, but not easy to fix immediately. I got eaten alive for disrespecting his ledgedashes and getting CC run up grabbed, and it took me entirely too long to adapt. By the time I had made appropriate adjustments, I had already gone down 0-2 in the reset, and while I took game 3 and played a very close g4, it was too little too late to win 2 DL games and I lost. Frustrating, but a valuable learning experience. Zain has shown a lot of ways to deal with the great Sheik-downholding problem lately, and I will study up.\nOn Friday I only got to play a couple of money matches, one vs Panko and another vs Doctor Lobster. My set with Panko was fun, but a little frustrating because I reverted back to some old bad/nervous habits vs Puff. Most notably, being too gunshy with the grab, and fighting seemingly every stock til 130. Not getting hit vs Puff is the most important thing to be sure, but the MU is so much easier if you can find some kills at 60-80. I also missed a couple of very important pivots I did get the opportunity to go for. To be fair though, he also missed a couple of rests, at least one of which was a very big deal for the set. On the positive side, I did a better job mixing in side b hit 2 than I ever have in a competitive setting, and introducing that mixup paid great dividends, and even had my thoughts/approach with it somewhat validated when Zain used it to great effect vs Hbox on Sunday. I closed the match 3-2, and definitely wouldn’t have if not for that improvement. For my money match vs Doctor Lobster, I’m going to be frank and say that I remember very little of the process. Going to give myself the Hbox excuse and say my heart wasn’t in it, and lost a fairly uneventful 3-1 to an excellent player. It happens. Perhaps most notable about the match however was the fact that I received a business card afterward detailing how I had been slain and was in fact free. This was all in good fun, and Dr Lobster is by all accounts a great guy, but it was funny.\nBracket Saturday for me was interesting. For r1 pools I had a bye for the first round, and my r2 match was against a Sheik main who was alarmingly technical relative to their seed/skill level, and did things like buffered crouch walk and cc run up boost grab. Fortunately for me they were not yet very well versed in actually using those tools and made the usual newer player drops/unforced errors, so I won the set pretty summarily. My next was was against Cali Fox player TinderMaster3000, who was significantly better than I assumed he would be. I nearly secured a four stock on the first game, but the second game was a competitive last stock game, and I think I needed that to get some of my jitters out. TONS of drops/movement flubs during that game, but managed to punish/edgeguard monkey my way to victory eventually.\nFor R2, I had to play my Melee Stats sponsorship-teammate Abbe, which I was pretty displeased about. Not only was it a team kill either way, he was also frankly a big “question mark” player in terms of skill both in general and the ditto because of it being his first time in the states, and I knew it was very much a possibility for me to be the beginning of someone else’s breakout. The biggest thing I learned in this set before game one was even over was to RPS for port 4. Abbe took port 4 from the jump and was one of the few Marths I’ve played that really understood what that meant and how to use it. Better than I would have been with it, honestly. His juggling reminded me of Logan’s, maybe not quite as good, but very close, and when I got uthrown I knew I was in for a world of hurt. On a related note, I think I did a very poor job of making decisions when Abbe had respawn invincibility, going to plat vs an extremely adept juggler and dying sub-50 for it multiple times. I edgeguarded/recovered reasonably well this set though, and eventually made adaptations to his consistent p4 jump outs. This combined with having enough of an edge in neutral allowed me to win 3-0, although every game was quite competitive and winnable for him. Not someone I’m sleeping on in the future.\nMy next set was with Mango. Look guys…you can google the set if you wanna watch it. I got owned, pure and simple. Mango played amazingly and outdid me in virtually every facet in the game. I think he did about 90 on average from touching my shield and edgeguarded phenomenally. I was so stunlocked I dropped a good deal of my own stuff once I did win neutral. Some people speculated it was nerves, but that wasn’t even really it; he was just hitting me that hard and fast and I was struggling to process the shift when I got an opening.\nFor loser’s bracket, my first set was with Matteo, and it was an odd one. Arguably the most significant recurring theme of the set was me doing a nair, and somehow missing both my drift back and my fastfall, and then getting shield grabbed. I’m not calling Matteo a “shield grabber” or anything here. Shield grabbing my awful nairs was 100% the correct decision, and he capitalized well. I don’t know why that happened so many times during the set, but it was a game changer, and I need to address it. Otherwise, the set contained several things I would call emergent patterns in my recent sets vs Falcon: I was extremely comfortable on YS, and extremely uncomfortable on DL. On Dreamland in particular vs higher level Falcons I tend to just really struggle to extend/hang on to leads, as well as struggling to contest the top plat/getting blown up when I try to do so. I think I need to work on comboing Falcon more horizontally on DL in particular, and perhaps playing for the gimp/early edgeguard harder on that stage, as he can live tippers until past 120. I’m honestly not sure about what to do with the top plat dilemma on that stage. My last sets vs Salt, Mekk, and now Matteo all feature me getting bopped in that position, and I need answers, but haven’t found them. I also need to get a little more comfortable on Fountain, as I think I’m not leveraging it as a counterpick hard enough. I spend too much time challenging stomp through the platform for no reason, and not enough dash dancing underneath the platforms when they’re positioned awkwardly for him. I need to reverse those proportions. Those platforms are part of the reason I pick the stage, and instead I allow them to benefit Falcon. Luckily I use the closed in space reasonably well, but if Matteo hadn’t SD’d at near-zero on a race to the ledge situation in that game, him winning that set 3-1 would have been very plausible. I also need to work on not throwing Falcon to the top plat on FoD. It’s just bad and wrong, not a lot else to say there.\nMy next set was against Vortex. If an opponent committed a tactical error against me during Shine, it was Vortex switching to Sheik games 2 and 3. Game one against the Fox ended up being a two stock in my favor, but in all honesty I felt very threatened the whole time and was dropping some stuff. Maybe if I had been nailing all my edgeguards it would have been a wash badly enough to warrant the character switch, but in the moment it just wasn’t, at all. Once Vortex switched to Sheik I kinda just…won. I played a little too “tournament” and didn’t go offstage with my edgeguards enough, and allowed his stocks to last too long as a result, but never did I feel the urgency/threat that I felt from his Fox, and so took the set 3-0.\nAfter that was my set with Polish, which I think marks my new best win, and certainly my biggest win on LAN. To give someone else the Hbox excuse, I’m not sure if Polish’s heart was in it this set given their prior loss to Mekk and preoccupation with Fox for the rest of the weekend, but on the other hand I don’t think they played particularly badly either (other than a couple of missed ledge sweetspots I downtilted), so I wouldn’t call it a Mickey Mouse win or anything. I was, for the most part, pretty proud of the way I played this set. My biggest issue with Polish in the past (and this is something Wally is good at too) was dealing with them on the platforms, where even if they wouldn’t hit me they would inevitably end up coming back down for free with a turnip in hand. In this set I successfully made the adaptations I had worked on (and talked with Mai about) to deal with this, and was able to make it so the traditional wisdom of “don’t be above Marth” still held true. My recovery was also fantastic for this set, to the point that I might even recommend other Marths watch it. When I say that it’s a big deal, because usually I tell people to never study me, only Zain and maybe Kodorin. That said, my play was by no means perfect.: For one, I kept trying to repeatedly down air Peach like she was Puff or some weird low tier. This is unnecessary and bad, and I got getup attacked for it repeatedly. If I had just crouch techchased, I could have probably just won the set 3-1 or even 3-0. I also went for the M2K fair techchase rather than a normal techchase in some spots where it was clearly the wrong decision, and chalk that up to having no Peach warmup at all (first and I think only Peach I played in singles all weekend), and lacked confidence. Still, it was incorrect, and I need to work on that too. Probably should have gone back to FD after my loss game 2 as well but in all honestly I had just screwed up pretty bad there and wanted the change of pace/close quarters, and was liking the top plat escape this set.\nMy last set for Saturday was against Dr Lobster, who I had money matched (as mentioned) on Friday. I felt okay going into this set, but my throw in game two is almost certainly going to be the stuff of legends for those that saw it. To the commentators: it was pure nerves, not controller issues. I wasn’t tilted, just sort of overwhelmed, but man did it manifest in the worst possible way. The set in its entirety after that point was sort of characterized by nervous flubs on both sides, and while there were a lot of high-level ideas exchanged, we messed up an incredible number of them. Still, I managed to not tilt even in the face of a hard set and a lively crowd, and so I’m proud of at least that much. Unfortunately, I did not have the heart to hand Doc Lob back the “You have been slain” business card after that, as I wasn’t keen on throwing down with the entirety of New England, and did not want to make him feel bad, but it would have been really funny.\nOn Sunday, my only set was with Jmook, who in case nobody else realized, is a monster. Absolutely just beat the stuffing out of me game one, but I did manage to take game two thanks in part due to an edgeguard overextension by him, and some solid neutral by me (I did moves without getting cc run up grabbed!). The next two games I mostly got gapped in the punish. I felt like I had a strong presence in neutral, but he was so fast and hit so hard that I didn’t take my openings nearly as far as I could. Combine that with some nervous movement flubs in game three and a tragic SD on a ledgehog attempt at 0 in game four, and that was the set. Still, I felt like without those 2 things both games would have been fairly close, and I think that is pretty good against the best Sheik ever. Insufficient, but nothing to be ashamed of. In terms of new technology, I had never seen his soft bair-\u0026gt;uair extension for the kill he hit a couple of times, and I believe he used the same technique on Kodoirn in the next round. I’ll need to learn how to DI for that, or just learn to accept it if I can’t. Very cool though.\nIn summary I have some mixed feelings about this bracket run. On one hand, I beat a top 20 player and made day three at a major! On the other hand, it’s a little frustrating that four of the five very good players I beat to get there were relative unknowns (or a returning vet people aren’t sure how to evaluate, in Vortex’s case.) Make no mistake: If Abbe, Matteo, or Doc Lob competed more on the national scene, people would know who they are, and Vortex has still got it. I’m very proud to have wins over those players, and have the utmost respect for them, but on the other hand I do wish people understood their skill level a little better so that they would be the feathers in my cap in terms of ranking/public perception that some similarly skilled players would have been. Still, this is ultimately a minor complaint, and on the whole this marks my best run at a major to date (although, given that my last one was three years ago, it would be kind of weird if it didn’t).\nTHINGS TO WORK ON Dealing with Sheik crouch Dealing with/respecting Sheik ledgedash Develop a better Dreamland gameplan vs Falcon Do not throw/early hit Falcon onto the FoD top plat Better leverage crouch cancel to escape the corner vs Sheik More mindfulness/more varied escape options under Fox pressure Hitting hard even when under pressure/being hit hard myself ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/shine_2022_/","summary":"","title":"Shine 2022"},{"content":"Tournament Now UC Me was an interesting event. Located in a very nice, new-feeling venue that had obviously been furnished and supported by a university esports program, it had a different vibe than most melee tournaments. It featured an interesting mix of older veterans like myself as well as newcomers that looked perhaps even too young to be a student there. There were numerous projections of the bracket available for competitors to look at in the walls throughout the room, which was a very cool perk of the venue, which were also used to provide a stream of the GOML pools matches that were happening Saturday.\nAs for how it was run…some tournaments are just set up for success. This was one of them. It lacked any really difficult “top player” types to wrangle, had plenty of veterans to help newer players through the process, and a good venue. All of those advantages would make it tempting to paint the narrative that running it was easy, but I think Thrive and company went above and beyond, taking full advantage of the amenities the venue afforded them, and deftly handled what could have been potential hiccups (P+ bracket running slightly over, Summit 3-way tiebreaker match needing to happen) without causing any significant delay. There were also two streams (shoutout Wagro) that run simultaneously without any issues, which is unusual for a tournament of that size. Clearly located/assigned pool captains are also something you don’t always see at events at this scale, but having them made things significantly smoother. Since it was so void of major challenges, can I really say it was a heroic TOing performance? No, but for a first time event by Thrive I thought it was outstanding, and those helping (pool captain etc.) did great too.\nIf I had to pick a couple of negatives, the biggest one was that the relatively narrow chair/table layout meant it was hard to arrange chairs for a 3 person friendly rotation, but that was an unavoidable consequence of the venue layout and I think a more than fair compromise for all the positives it offered. It will, however, be a challenge should they ever opt to run doubles (PLEASE DO) in that venue, and some strategic extra tables may have to be in order. Lastly, some of the CRTs were comically small. If you are a TO, do the world a favor and smack the 6in CRT out of your attendee’s arms when they bring it into the venue, or at the very least refuse the venue refund. We can and should do better than TVs for ants.\nOne thing I will also point out is that I saw more women at this event (in terms of percentage of players/audience) than just about any other I’ve been to, which was cool. It didn’t really affect anything as far as the event was concerned, but I believe melee is a special and beautiful enough thing that it is a shame that it reaches an almost exclusively male audience, and it’s nice to see anything that bucks that trend.\nAs for the bracket, I’m not well-versed enough in Ohio standings/lore to speak on any standout runs (people acted as though Simian\u0026gt;TwoTran was significant, but I think that might have been due to an OH Summit spot on the line), but altan performed significantly above seed, making top 8 while seeded to get (I believe) 17th. Honestly, though, that was more or less what I expected, and I believe it was the case that he was only seeded where he was due to relative inactivity. At the very least, none of his wins surprised me at all. 13StealDuck 3-0ing Iceking feels notable given the MU and that it was a 3-0, but it was not an upset seeding wise nor should it have been.\nPERSONAL These personal sections are always meant to be skippable and as much for me to journal as anything else, and I only don’t separate them because people tell me they like reading them. Occasionally, strange parasocial twitter people take offense to their contents, but for the most part reception is positive. However, I had a major controller mishap at this event after a year of struggling with such things, so some sad boy posting is probably ahead. Continue reading only if that does not deter you.\nFor anyone interested in the story of what happened with my controller at this event, it is pretty mundane: Free Palestine and I sat down to play Winner’s Semis, and he wanted to go grab a chair that didn’t have armrests. I said “here let’s just switch”, since I don’t mind the arm rests, and as we moved the chairs my controller got knocked off the desk that had the TV etc. This was a pretty unavoidable, totally faultless occurrence, but when I picked it back up the X axis of my analog stick was completely non-functioning. This turned out to be caused by a magnet that had popped out (Phob moment), but fortunately a very competent controller modder (shoutout Specs) was present and put it back in for me. Unfortunately, this both required a recalibration and made the controller feel immediately different. I made the decision to play out semis anyway, but in all honesty I can’t help but feel like that was a mistake; the outcome of the set became clear to me after only a couple of stocks (more on that later), and I ended up DQing out of loser’s rather than play it out. Could I have maybe won some more sets anyway? Anything is possible. Some Marth nonsense could have happened vs Suidt’s Fox and Samus is not a MU where movement is emphasized for Marth, but I knew there was no way I was taking the tournament, and more importantly, no way I was going to be even remotely okay with the play that I would be demonstrating. I bowed out, to the disappointment of a few, and elected not to suffer further embarrassment.\nAs for how my matches went\u0026hellip;\nI played a box (grrr) Sheik called boyswhocry (presents feminine and uses those pronouns, which makes the name in no way confusing at all) and it was unfortunately the best I played in bracket all day. In particular, I think I did an uncharacteristically strong job of covering roll this set, and I was proud of most of my punish/juggle options as well as the execution thereof. I could have been significantly more aggressive in my offstage edgeguards, but otherwise I was pleased with the set. For boyswhocry’s part, I think she was actually a surprisingly solid player to be fed to a really high seed so early, and just got a little off balance by being outsped and hit really hard, which led to some questionable panic options and rolling.\nFor my second set, I played a Marth/Fox called St. Brick. I’m going to be honest with everyone: most of this set is lost in my old man memory void. I remember thinking that his Fox was significantly better than his Marth, being very frustrated at the number of conversions/edgeguards I dropped vs the Fox, and disagreeing with his stadium counterpick with Fox. If you read this your holiness, I humbly suggest you try Yoshi’s or Dreamland when counterpicking Marth with Fox. I can’t comment on your Marth as I legitimately remember nothing about the first game and I really do apologize for that.\nNext, I played Simian, and while I don’t think I played particularly badly this set, I was not at all proud of my mental game. Game two I went down on Dreamland, and when it became obvious that playing very defensive was his strategy, I checked out and mentally said go next. This is totally unacceptable. I have rehearsed answers when Sheik does repeated bair in place/retreating bair, and methodical, practiced ways to get underneath her when she plays the needle/bair platform game. I abandoned those in favor of artlessly flinging myself at my opponent, and was rewarded accordingly with a game loss. Otherwise, I sort of just won all the other games pretty handily, including a Marth switch for FD which I respect but was not quite on the level of the Sheik yet. I got an early lead in all the other games and Simian’s very defensive playstyle appeared to be pretty dependent upon having one. It is hard for me to offer advice/critique in this situation because our scene has so many weird hangups about what I call “Moral Melee” (Camp = Evil. Approach = Good. Floaty = Evil. Spacie = Good.) that I feel like I’m insulting my opponent when I say this, but to Simian: you have to have greater offensive presence at higher levels. Good players (myself in game two excluded \u0026gt;.\u0026gt;), will not often give you openings with unsafe approaches if you do not exert offensive pressure. If your attack never comes, it only serves to give them infinite time to set up their own. Rest assured, I am not insulting you/do not care at all about being “camped”, at least in tournament. If that is what you feel like you need to do to win, please do it. I just disagree with it being generally optimal.\nNext I played Altan, which was…very far from my best work. I SD’d twice at low percent in game two and lost it, and narrowly won a VERY sloppy Yoshi’s Story slugfest for game four. Mostly, I am frustrated that I allowed very simplified grab vs big swing situations to keep materializing. Altan was comfortable playing them, and played them well, but I really do believe those are best avoided when consistent wins is the goal. I did a poor job of maintaining the proper distance for a more methodical dash dance and poking game, and instead repeatedly allowed both huge separations and 50/50 scrambles to occur. I eventually won the set on the back of a little cleaner execution and recognizing his propensity for big swings with dash attack and especially fsmash, but “shield the big move and hope they don’t grab” is not the recipe for success I’m looking for in Marth dittos. I need to seize the tempo and not eat that mixup repeatedly, even if I came out on top this time.\nNext was my ill-fated set with Free Palestine. I was really disappointed in this one for obvious reasons, but doubly so because we had a couple of really tight sets back before the COVID pandemic, but I lost them both and was eager to show how much I’ve improved. Obviously, that was not to be, and I got pretty much hosed disregarding the DK game on FD (Still not really sure what that was about). The games weren’t actual blowouts in terms of stock counts, but at no point did I feel in control or like I SHOULD win. I was in my own head bad enough during this set I can’t really note any habits/key interaction patterns we had, other than that I repeatedly opted to cover spotdodge and instead he would roll. Really, I could sit here and john about my controller forever, but at the end of the day the VOD of the set exists and any reader can judge it for themselves if they’d like. Suffice it to say, the issues were bad enough that I dropped out of bracket rather than play out loser’s, which is something I’ve NEVER done before, and am generally critical of players doing.\nOutside of tournament, I mostly played friendlies with streamer and Nashville TO/homie Wagro, as well as some with Zamu. I really enjoyed my friendlies with Zamu (which is surprising, because as twitter goblins know we HATE each other and are actually arch-nemeses), and was impressed with the improvements he had made to his punish game and ESPECIALLY his recovery. I don’t remember the last time I struggled like that to edgeguard a Fox in LAN, and it illustrated to me the need to seek high level Fox practice out. Theory is fine and good, but putting it all together against an opponent that will hit as hard as him if you mess up is simply different. I am not into friendly counting, but I’m pretty sure I was getting the worse of those games, especially at first, and it was largely thanks to his being able to regularly extend his stock to 150+. On the bright side, I felt better about my ability to circumnavigate small stage top platform play than I did when we played in March, and saw some improvements in my techchasing. The edgeguards, however, were simply not where they need to be, and I’ll work on them.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/now_uc_me/","summary":"","title":"Now UC Me"},{"content":"On Saturday March 18th I attended Short Hop Lazer 13 in Knoxville, TN. It was fun to see many of my local friends, and I did end up winning the tournament. However, it was an event not without issues. For monthly \u0026amp; smaller regional events, I always try to be especially patient and kind to TOs for two reasons: They are usually very much soft-committed volunteers who can easily take their ball and go home. Also, they are often my friends. With this in mind, there are two critiques I would humbly offer for the event for the future: Single DQs to loser’s bracket are unfair to other attendees, and there should always be a degree of priority placed on finishing events. As for the single DQs, they mattered less in the context of this small bracket, but it isn’t fair to the people who show up on time to potentially go 0-2 because some high seeds apparently can’t read the start times on start.gg. As for finishing events, I believe it is just better for everyone. It enables attendees to focus on one event at a time, and for people in fewer events to leave earlier if they wish, and it only delays the event under very specific circumstances. In particular, PM doubles was held for at least 3 hours to let singles run. Was PM doubles a terribly competitive bracket anyone placed a lot of importance on? No, but it still caused at least one attendee to have to stick around considerably longer, and pulled at least two other competitors out of focusing on their singles brackets while very deep into them. Otherwise, I think the event was run well and at a reasonable pace. There was adequate space and reasonably accessible bracket/TO staff. It was pretty cold early on in the venue (more on that later), but that was out of the TOs hands and I’m not about to fault anyone for that at a board game shop monthly\nAs for the bracket itself, it was one of the craziest in TN history. A small part of this can be attributed to the decision to single DQ Den and Geegog into loser’s rather than double, but really there was just a rash of upsets unlike anything we had ever seen. Mewwy, the ~12 seed, made it all the way to winner’s finals, upsetting Unoriginal (8 seed, who should have been higher), myself (1 seed) and beating local friend/rival 12YOWeaboo, who had upset both sinkingwithseals and 4 seed (who should have probably been 2 seed) Majersk to make it into WS. On the other side of bracket, East TN newcomer KittieSE upset Rooster in WR2, Signify upset Moist, and Mr. Brandondorf made it all the way to WS on the back of the Den single DQ, while also upsetting the red hot Signify, notably taking a game with his debuting Fox. The only high seed that performed as expected was Cantus, who made it to winner’s side grand finals, only dropping 2 games total, one each to KittieSE and Mewwy. In loser’s, Rooster upset Majersk, causing the player who I thought should have been seeded second to get ninth. That was the end of the madness, however, and for the rest of the bracket a sense of normalcy returned. Den beat Moist (albeit comically early in loser’s), sinkingwithseals ran it all back to LS after the WR2 loss, and I won the tournament without dropping another game. In truth, I think there are a couple of things that contributed to the early bracket craziness, but the biggest one was the temperature of the venue. I did not have access to a thermometer, but I would guess that the room with most of the Melee setups and the stream was somewhere in the 40s. For my part, before a couple of my sets my hands were shaking and my teeth were chattering. It did warm up throughout the day, and I think this heavily contributed to the comparative lack of strange results later in the tourney.\nPersonal Let’s get it out of the way: I lost insanely early this tournament. Mewwy is good and she beat me in WQs. I was extremely displeased about it. I do blame the cold for my poor play to a large degree, but I think I vindicated myself by running it all the way back without dropping a game. Still, there are things I can learn from this. I deal with the cold/warm up my hands MUCH better when I’ve eaten. I need to insist on doing so before playing in bracket in the future, even if it means getting something delivered or buying something relatively pricey, even if it will be difficult to convince my miserly brain of. It will be a good investment for both my financial and mental health. Another significant personal event was a magnet mount falling out of my controller in the middle of a doubles set, and while we did go on to win anyway, it continues the saga of my controller woes. Luckily, the controller behaved well otherwise, I just need to spend more time getting used to the newer stick feel. I’d also like to give a shoutout to AWOL (my GOAT) for giving me the mid-set pit stop that I needed to keep going in the tourney.\nAt this event I did entered not only Melee singles but also the aforementioned doubles, as well as PM singles/doubles, where I got 3rd/2nd respectively. I normally focus hard on Melee for these but because Knoxville adores PM/P+ I can include a little blurb about it. I really just better player’d the crap out of everyone I played in P+ until I played Rooster in WS, winning 3-1. I played the MU vs his MetaKnight much better than last time during the first game, but I fell back into some old, less MU appropriate patterns as the set progressed. Fortunately for me, he SD’d game four and I was able to mount a comeback to take the set. WFs vs Xtreme’s ROB was probably the best I’ve ever played in P+ (this was near the end of the day where it was warmer and I had eaten), but it still wasn’t enough to pull through. I will maintain that Marth/ROB is an absolutely TERRIBLE MU for Marth, and I was unable to span that gap. I was pretty mad about it, and am still on the fence about playing Marth into ROB in the future. I don’t think he’s in the Zard/DDD unwinnable MU tier, but the gap in punish, survivability, and edgeguarding is brutal. In loser’s I lost to Dank’s Snake, which was unsurprising since I haven’t thought about Snake in probably over a year. It’s a pretty specific MU that requires a lot of little nuances that I just wasn’t prepared for, and I will maintain that Snake’s sticky explosive is one of the worst mechanics in any platform fighter.\nAs for my Melee bracket I beat Georgia’s C$ round 2 after a round 1 bye, brutalizing the Falcon game one and then having a much closer one with the Fox game two. I honestly wonder why he bothered with the Falcon at all, as the Fox just seemed to be both hotter and better in general. Regardless, this was the set that tipped me off to how rough the event was going to be, as I was already freezing and struggling to move much.\nMy next round was being upset by Mewwy. I actually don’t think she played very well this set either (she missed a bunch of CC dash up punishes that I know her for, as well as at least one meaningful handoff), but in a MU of Marth vs a slidey smash attacker that thrives on chaos, unclean play does tend to benefit one party more. I lost a close game 3 in an extremely sloppy set, and I’m not really sure what else to say about it.\nNext I played the two seed in Den for 9th. I do not exaggerate when I say that it was the worst set we have ever played. I think in the first 15 seconds we both missed multiple L cancels and Den blatantly missed a side b to ledge, not even in the same zip code as the grab box. that This mistake set the tone for the rest of the set. Luckily for me, when the set is a little bit scuffed it tends to benefit Fox, but when the set is this massively scuffed it becomes an 8-2 MU for Marth. He really just handed me enough flub induced openings/botched recoveries that I was able to comfortably take it 2-0, but it didn’t really feel earned beyond one dope reverse bair combo I got.\nThe set after that was vs Rooster, who had just upset Majersk. I got rested relatively early game one and then proceeded to make a ton of movement flubs that ended up making game one a pretty close affair, but as the set progressed I finally started to warm up a bit. I still stuck with the stiff, too safe playstyle I criticized myself for having vs Dawson last week, but at least I started being able to move, and I did end up taking it 3-0.\nNext I played Mr. Brandandorf. I’ll be honest with everyone here: I think Ganon is really bad. I believe he is the most overrated character in the game, and that even characters like Link, DK, and the Marios are actually much better against the top tiers in Melee. I won game one by abusing the fact that Ganon is in fact quite bad and not giving him free openings. Lower level players tend to think Ganon is not that bad for two reasons: they give him free openings, and he needs relatively few openings to kill at low level compared to other characters. The thing is though: you don’t have to give Ganon any freebies if you don’t mess up, and at a high level Ganon’s punish game is actually pretty lackluster. Getting grabbed by Marth or Sheik at 10% carries a very real threat of death when they’re piloted by Zain or Jmook. Getting grabbed by Ganon at 10% is 1-2 aerials if God himself is on the sticks, discounting roulette wheel hard reads. I played just clean enough to deny free openings (yes, that is always easier said than done) and won game one very dominantly, after which he switched to Fox. The Fox was impressively technical, but it didn’t really seem to have a handle on the Marth MU and was also defeated summarily to close a 3-0.\nAfter that I played sinkingwithseals, a very strong ICs out of Chattanooga that I’ve known for quite a while. Game 1 was relatively close, but I was able to close it and then stayed comfortably in the lead for the rest of the set to finish 3-0. This set was also notable in that he was able to get the CC dash up punishes on fair that Mewwy was missing in WQs. which reminded me that I need to build better habits in those situations vs. Climbers, whether that be to dair instead, empty land, buffer roll, or up b like Mai advocates when top platform is available. I need to play against ICs more and target this situation mindfully or else it will continue to bite me, as Mewwy was also hitting those in the next set.\nIn the rematch with Mewwy, I think she actually played cleaner this set despite the loss, both in terms of neutral and punish execution, albeit with some unfortunate SDs (I think at least one per game) that really influenced the flow of the game. For my part, I moved immensely better than I had in WQs, and did enough to once again get the 3-0.\nLastly, I played my good friend Cantus in grand finals. The first game was pretty close, with both of us having some nervous flubs on FoD. However, I managed to hit my reactive edgeguards enough to close it out. From there, Cantus had a very unfortunate game two on YS that allowed me to really get my feet underneath me and dictate the rest of the set(s). I started to move better, hit my techchases, punishes, edgeguards, etc. For the second set he tried Falco game two on YS and I think this was a pretty bad decision, as I felt like on a different day I could have lost to the Fox. Conversely, if we had played 50 sets of Marth/Falco in tournament, it felt like I would have won all of them. Cantus is an extremely good player, and if he reads this I would implore him not to get discouraged and believe in himself and his Fox, because it really can do it.\nMy takeaways for this event were really mostly about out of game prep and some specific situations vs Ice Climbers. I already knew Ganon was Ganon, Den played at his true floor, and my takeaways vs. Puff were the same as last week. Perhaps this was not the most efficient tournament in terms of specific Melee improvement, but not without fruit. Ultimately, it is always nice to be among friends.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/short_hop_lazer_13/","summary":"","title":"Short Hop Lazer 13"},{"content":"EVENT Collision 2023 was an interesting event from a players’ perspective. It had a lot of upsides: A very cool bracket people will be talking about for a long time, impeccable day-of TOing, and the all Bo5 format people have been clamoring for since I started playing the game. But it also had its share of downsides: Significant space/crowding issues (and related temperature), frustrating scheduling, and a painfully isolated/unwalkable location. I think on the balance these issues were significant enough that I would hesitate to return to Collision if it were to be held in the same space in the future, but I left with a positive enough impression of the Collision team that I’d be more than happy to give it a shot in a new location.\nTo elaborate on the positives: Ryobeat is a GOAT, and knows exactly who to deputize to make things run smoothly. In spite of what all the naysayers may claim about Bo5 and scheduling issues, I didn’t witness a single pool run over its allotted time over the weekend. I think this can be attributed to two things: a competent and strict TO staff when it came to DQs, and all Bo5s simply not being what most players/organizers think it is. When FGC/Ultimate organizers hear “all bo5”, they have nightmares about high level Peach/Samus sets going to game 5 and taking half an hour, or two teenagers in Ultimate needing 50 neutral wins per game. In Melee pools, 98% of the time it’s going to be a lopsided 2-0 or 3-0 that ends quickly regardless of the characters on the screen, because one player will outclass the other in neutral and/or punish pretty badly. For the two percent of sets in which that does not occur, we can more than make up the time difference by burning entitled top players ali- I mean, actually enforcing DQ policies. Furthermore, if people are really that worried about it, I would advocate for the flex Bo5 format run by Kill Roy last weekend. I think it’s a fantastic middle ground that removes from people most of the heartache and “what if?” that comes with bo3 while also keeping pools largely expedited, and at least pays lip service to the concerns of outside TOs.\nAs for the negatives, the two most glaring were the amount of space and location. I’ve been to house tournaments less crowded than Ballroom B during Saturday pools. During wave two it was so hot in that room that many of the competitors were visibly sweating, and it wasn’t because the games were so intense. It did not make me feel optimistic as a more disease-conscious community member, and it highlighted the fact that this event capped early in a negative way. I also question how far over the cap the event was when you factor in spectators and also potentially random people who did not pay, as I was able to enter despite forgetting my badge multiple times. As for the location, the hotel was very pretty, had nice rooms, and great customer service. It was honestly the best hotel experience I’ve had at a major. It just also had the unfortunate quality of being in the middle of nowhere. If you flew to Collision, you either bummed a ride or used a rideshare/delivery app every time you wanted to eat something besides overpriced hotel food. You could not even get to a pharmacy/gas station safely without a ride. This is a big deal for a major trying to attract out of region talent, as it creates both financial strain and inconvenience for all non-local attendees, and takes time away from grinding the game and/or bonding with friends.\nLastly, I have to lambaste the schedule a little bit. People loved Aklo’s tweet making fun of Fiction’s hyperbolic language about the schedule, but in the end, Fiction was right: the scheduling for this event (and Riptide last year) was downright bad. No one should have to play what was often a less than one hour pool at 11am and then have a break all the way til 7pm, and things like my pool at 3 and then r2 at 7 create awkward gaps that are too long to spend warming up but also not long enough to get food in such an isolated location and still have enough warm up time. Much like I shilled flex bo5 as a solution to time concerns, I’d like to highlight Shine 2022’s rolling waves as a potential solution to mid-size major scheduling woes. Having two simple back to back blocks was just immensely less stressful as a competitor, and I don’t think it’s prohibitively difficult to run from a TO perspective. Even if you thought it was, events like Genesis/Big House doing better with almost triple the entrant numbers highlight that just doing the “normal” way can be less painful with better planning.\nAs for the bracket itself, the undeniable star had to be Zuppy. Making winner’s side top 8 and reverse 3-0ing amsa, as well as beating Moky and Llod, was an incredible performance people will be talking about for a long time. If you see him in the coming days, be sure to reach out and congratulate him for the stellar run. I will also highlight the brothers Rishi/Llod showing us that they haven’t lost a single step, putting on great performances both in singles and doubles, with Rishi beating Kodorin and Llod making his way to 5th beating amsa and avenging his brother against Aklo. Khryke relatively quietly made a strong run as well, beating me and then 3-0ing the newly sponsored Magi to get 17th, only losing to Jmook and Kodorin. As for underperformance, the newly CLG Magi as mentioned did a bit worse than expected, but I (and most other solid players) have such a high opinion of her in the more common MUs I’m 100% confident in her ability to bounce back comfortably. Amsa continued his skid too, getting 13th after entering the year as the unanimous one seed for majors. I would need to actually watch his sets to comment more comfortably on his trajectory, but it is certainly noteworthy. I also feel like mentioning the borderline terror I felt watching the top 3 at this tournament. I saw a clear gap between Jmook/Zain/Cody and the field, and it felt like everyone else at the tournament honestly showed up just trying to make top 8. I’m sure Hbox and amsa can continue to make a splash at the very top level, and Moky (and maybe Zuppy?) is/are getting there, but for this weekend those three felt like professionals competing against amateurs.\nPERSONAL I find myself back in a familiar place. Exhausted and defeated, waxing poetic about my experience, much to the chagrin of weird twitter goblins. Unfortunately, much like the last one of these writeups I did, my tournament was heavily influenced by controller issues. I got to NJ using a Phob that I believe had a short of some kind with the Z button, which caused it to behave unusually. It would often cause me to simply miss JC grab, but other times it would behave…weirdly. If I tried holding the z button, it would sometimes lightshield normally, but sometimes mash grab, and other times simply do nothing at all, to give an idea of the strangeness. Luckily for me, Tezlik (my GOAT) had offered to meet me at the venue Friday and supply me with a new Phob board and put my current buttons/triggers on it. After doing that, I played two games with the new Phob, only to have one of the magnets fall out on the third. I quickly DM’d Paladin (also my GOAT) who was at CVS, and he managed to procure some superglue, which Tezlik then used to fix the offending magnet into place. I then returned to the venue floor, only to find that the Y axis had been inverted. I spent a good deal of time trying to calibrate on a setup blindly, but found I was only able to make things worse. Luckily, I eventually found that the modders at the No Jons Mods booth had smash scope set up, and they graciously helped me recalibrate it into working condition near the end of the evening (more GOATs). I guess this is where I’ll put my Johns: Night before/morning of a tournament is nowhere near enough time to get used to new sticks/calibration, especially under tournament pressure. I continued to miss dashes and fastfalls constantly throughout the weekend, and it made even just playing the game a lot less enjoyable, let alone the relatively weak bracket results it contributed to. The litany of issues before fixing it did nothing for my confidence either. I don’t say any of this to blame anyone; Tezlik is absolutely my GOAT for making things happen for me, and it is on me to have a working backup for times like this. However, at this point I honestly wish I had dropped out of the bracket, as I was unable to move at a level even close to what I know myself to be capable of. I am going to continue this writeup and review my bracket sets as though I was not having controller issues, however, as my opponents deserve that level of respect and I still want to glean whatever I can from the experience.\nAt the prelocal, zombie Dillon made an appearance on God knows how few hours of sleep and a day of travel. I remember very little outside Inky destroying me with the power of roll in grab, getting totally owned game 2 by Krudo, and beating Bbatts without deserving to in the slightest thanks to his SD. I’d love to give a more detailed account of thee local, but I legitimately do not recall what happened beyond what I listed and being mad about my controller/that I had to play so many Sheiks with so little brain power available.\nAt the real Collision bracket, my first set was against a Fox who didn’t know how stage striking worked. He then proceeded to drill waveshine upsmash me reliably. This post-Slipp world remains wild. Luckily for me, there were enough holes in his neutral and a big enough gap in punish games that it was still a pretty simple affair to win, but I couldn’t help but be a little shook at how different R1s are these days. My second set went somewhat similarly, this time against a Luigi player who actually brought me to last stock game two. I quit autopiloting and almost 4 stocked him game three, but I was impressed with the level of play he brought forth to the bracket, and with his composure facing a rough matchup and a much higher rated player.\nMy set to make it out of R1 was against Lynxwynx, a fellow Melee Stats Extended Universe Marth player who was actually pretty solid, beating 10QuidShoes 3-0 to make it to round two and then continuing a couple of spots deeper. Unfortunately for her, this set was the best I played in bracket this tournament, and I won the RPS for port 4. I won every game comfortably, and was able to execute my gameplan relatively cleanly. This also marked set (seemingly) # 4000000 where the lower ranked Marth took me to YS and did much worse for it. I’ve come to be very comfortable on that stage, and don’t find it to be nearly as chaotic in the ditto as popular perception would suggest. If you want to GAMBLE in the ditto (or just specifically counterpick a stage I’m bad on), I would humbly recommend FoD.\nMy next set was against Dawson, who 3-0’d me. This was frustrating for a lot of reasons, but mostly for the complete lack of confidence I played with. I reverted to a very scared, low movement, walling-only gameplan, which is not at all how you should be playing against good Puffs. I played almost without grabbing too, and had Puff living to 150 most stocks. I also insisted on pressuring his side platform position very poorly, and I do not know why, especially since that one had absolutely nothing to do with controller issues. For his part, I don’t think Dawson did anything particularly new or novel in this set (if anything, there was a relative lack of the excellent ground movement \u0026amp; shield counterplay I know him for), and he mostly just took the rope I gave him and hung me with it. But that too is part of being a good player, and recognizing what you are being given can oftentimes be a smoother path to victory than trying to impose your will via overwhelming superiority. All of that aside, I think the most important takeaway here for me was that the set continued my trend of reverting back to older, worse gameplans vs Puff in tournament, and I don’t know why it’s such a more pronounced problem vs her in particular. I think I need to go through a long grind vs Puff, because ultimately how I feel about my knowledge of the MU and how I perform in friendlies don’t matter if I can’t do it when it counts. If the answer is to get so far ahead that “reverting” takes me back to where I am now in friendlies, then so be it, but I have to do something.\nMy two sets after that were against boxx players, first against Falco/YL Hollowy. Hollowy wasn’t someone I was familiar with, and in retrospect I’m glad that I didn’t notice they had beaten the good Marth Tazio the round before. I’m going to be blunt here: I utterly sleepwalked through this set and really only ever woke up to clutch game one. This was without a doubt my worst play of the tournament, and I dropped almost everything there was to drop, especially that first game. I do not really remember any of the specifics from this set other than clutching game one, being annoyed at YL game three, and laughing at the speed being on boxx afforded them relative to other Falcos at this level. I don’t think I’d rewatch this set even if given the opportunity.\nNext up was CupofWater, who I beat 3-1. This set was a lot more sleepwalking, but not as bad as the previous set. This was disappointing because I think cupofwater is actually pretty good and just played quite poorly this set too. My punish game carried me here, but I need to remember to edgeguard like my opponent is a top Fox even when they aren’t quite playing at that level. Lazily staying on stage for edgeguards is a key difference in my gameplay vs Fox in tournament vs friendlies, and I need to get better in that regard.\nMy last set was against Khryke, who beat me 3-1. Khryke is a friend I have played with a good deal, but this was actually our first LAN set. I definitely played better here than in my previous loser’s sets, but obviously it was not enough. The things that Khryke did in this set that jumped out to me were his willingness to mash out things like downsmash in scrambles, and in his excellent use of up b throughout the set, particularly the first two games. I was a big fan of the latter, but I still don’t know if the former has good/risk reward, and if you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick I would still answer “no”. He also has extremely clean ledgedashes for a Marth, as well as excellent usage of his respawn invincibility. Those two were areas where I knew I would be at a disadvantage going in, and I think I did a good job of mitigating the ledgedash gap, but I still suffered from the respawn disparity. I should have recognized that going FD was the move after game one instead of game two, because losing platform interactions and my relative lack of clean/confident movement were definitely the areas I was struggling the most in. This was especially costly because Khryke knows how much I hate FoD in the ditto, and so had a very powerful counterpick available after going up 2-0. My takeaways from this set are to keep talking with Khryke about better play vs respawn/using my own respawn, and to lab better answers to his anti-side plat play. He was doing relatively simple stuff with utilt catching my wavedash/shield drop out consistently, and I need to figure out risk/reward calculations short hopping above that utilt, going top plat and then making my way down, or just shielding/lightshielding and waiting another beat. A part of me is glad to have lost this set, because Khryke would then go on to beat Magi 3-0, something I would have been completely unable to do with my controller issues (Falco with controller problems is easily the scariest MU, and Magi is insanely good at Melee and could 3-0 me a lot of days even without them), and I was very happy for him.\nIn closing, I had a really hard time in-game over the weekend, but still think I managed to find some valuable takeaways. I will also have TWO (2) working, quality controllers by the time my next out of state event rolls around, or I will not attend.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/collision_2023/","summary":"","title":"Collision 2023"},{"content":"For me March 4th, 2023 was Kill Roy Volume 6, which was a tournament in Bloomington IN. The tournament was very well run, and pretty flawlessly executed the supposedly “experimental” flex Bo5 format for pools, and did not run meaningfully over even when I observed multiple Samus main game 5s. TOs were punctual, clear, and generally helpful, and the whole thing ran pretty smoothly, especially given the high entrant number and relatively limited space. Some people (myself included) expressed a little frustration at the presence of a longer dinner break, but that is a matter of taste and not an objective good or bad, and it would be unfair to allow my personal preferences to color my assessment of the event.\nOne major asterisk in terms of the quality of organizing though was the organizers’ failure to notify people of last minute pool changes, which led to a very high seed in Skerzo being disqualified as he did not make it in time for his pool, which was moved late the night before from 3:30 to 2 o clock. While ultimately competitors should be checking their pools the morning of, it would have been prudent for the organizers to notify people of such potentially travel arrangement altering decisions, especially since the storm winds the day before prevented many people from coming up the night before. This did undoubtedly affect the flow of the tournament as Skerzo is more than good enough to ensure that he would have made a splash.\nPersonal Experience\nThe Kill Roy series holds a special place in my heart because Kill Roy Vol. 2 was my very first tournament outside my local. Unfortunately, this was not the triumphant return to it that I was hoping for, and instead was arguably the worst I’ve ever performed in tournament relative to my current skill level. I would love to be cool and take radical ownership of my play and say that it was uncontrolled nerves, just a bad day, or that I hadn’t been practicing, but in truth my phob broke the week before the event and I had to switch to random OEM out of my backpack the Thursday before the tournament. This was affecting me HEAVILY, even in sets that I dominantly won. The controller is both frankly not very good and I am/was also very unaccustomed to it. I was unable to move with confidence in any of my sets, and it showed. Ultimately, this still was on me, because the right thing to do would be to have a much better backup, but it was very frustrating nonetheless.\nFor doubles, I’m really not sure what happened. I teamed with the aforementioned Preeminent, who seemed to be doing very well every time I observed him on the screen, and for my part I felt like I was kind of owning 90% of the time in one v ones. We didn’t team combo well, but we did a decent job of hitting each other and saving one another, which is about as well as you can expect for a first time teaming together, especially since he said that it was his first time teaming with Marth. Still, we underperformed and got 5th, although both sets we lost were last game and extremely winnable. Game two against Eggy/Mekk in particular we both kind of threw at the end, which sucked, but it happened and we have to hold that.. We also lost to Rik/Lance, which was the only set where I felt that we were outplayed in terms of specific doubles play, which honestly makes sense given their experience level. The biggest thing I learned was that I’m not really sure what to do about Ganon in teams, as Mekk showed me that he can hold down/shield and Marth gets virtually no reward without immense risk on everything. I think that in the future I will simply either not play Marth or ask my teammate to help me not have to fight him. It’s a bit like Falcon in teams in this regard but you can’t blow him up nearly as easily/quickly when he does exit the defensive shell. I guess the other big thing that I learned too was that being on a bad backup controller doesn’t matter nearly as much in teams, as Marth’s role is much more centered around walling aerials and setting up zones, which can be done on virtually anything, which was nice for this event in particular\nFor pools, I played a Falcon/Falco player who was new enough to the scene he did not know who I was, and Kanye Midwest, who had just upset Suidt. Luckily for me, they both gave enough freebies that my inability to move didn’t really matter, and I was able to punish monkey my way to very lopsided victories. I did get to help Kanye Midwest with some DI tips after the set though, which I’m always happy to do, and welcome anyone to ask me for at any tournament.\nIn bracket, my first two sets were against Coffee and Eggy, and both were 3-0s in my favor. Many people commented on how dominant these were/how good I looked vs Peach, but I want to make something clear: These were not very good demonstrations of Marth/Peach. I hate to say this, because I have the utmost respect for the skills of both of these players, but me putting on a banner performance in Marth/Peach was not what was going on here. I just gapped both of them really hard in the MU, and in particular got 4000 soul reads game 2 on Coffee and noticed some pretty exploitable neutral habits from Eggy (notably jumping into me when he was at 0 almost without fail). if I had played at this level vs Polish, Llod, Wally, or presumably Trif, I would have been summarily 3-0’d. Furthermore, the slower nature of the Peach MU made my inability to move well less consequential, but if you revisit the sets with comms off I think even a cursory watch will reveal how much trouble I had moving even with full confidence and a big lead.\nMy next two sets were 1-3 losses against Fox mains, which was an immensely faster matchup where my movement failures bit me more times than I could count. The first of these was vs Zamu, who I would have been very excited to face under different circumstances, as I think he is quite good at the MU, and is in general just a very cool/fun player to play against. I got up to a solid lead game one, but in all honesty it was largely built on Zamu running into my fairs in place repeatedly and me being able to execute punish decently. However, on an easy edgeguard that would have put me up more than a full stock, I SD’d in a bizarre way that pretty instantly decided the game. One of my friends described the sight as watching my soul leave my body, and it is difficult to argue with him given how it felt. I did win the next game, but it was a very “FD” FD counterpick game with big punishes carrying me. By game 3, Zamu had wised up to my overly leaning on defensive fair, and was in control the rest of that set. In particular on Yoshi’s he played the top platform with a stock lead very very well. I felt very powerless to do anything about it because the precision needed to challenge that position is extreme in the best of times, and every good Marth main I’ve ever talked to has either agreed that it is a fundamentally difficult/bad position for Marth, or failed to make a good argument otherwise. I’m very unsure if I could have been effective in that spot even on a good day with the world’s best controller, and I need to up both my general skill and bag of tricks for it.\nAs an aside, Zamu popped off for that SD, and I have to say: Bro what the hell? Serious coward behavior.\nAgainst Preeminent, the whole venue got to see my skill floor. I had all the movement issues I’ve whined about for hundreds of words now, but now I was also dropping my punishes! I know I started this piece off by spotlighting Preeminent’s performance, but I have to be honest in this section: in our set, I think his approach to the MU was largely wrong. He mostly laser camped, and I just wasn’t moving well enough to catch him out. I do not think that it is a long term effective style against Marth, and it’s a shame that due to success he will no doubt be galvanized towards replicating it in the future. The cost for Fox repeatedly cornering himself should be immensely greater than the 8 percent or however much the lasers get. My lack of confidence led to me hesitating to pull the trigger in these important spots, and repeatedly cost me greatly. This wasn’t a set that really taught me anything about the game, but I did learn just a little bit more about suffering, so that’s something…I guess. I know this assessment doesn’t make it sound like it, but I really do respect Preeminent, and appreciate him teaming with me. But this was a very bad set, and I’m not into sugarcoating things for the sake of diplomacy in personal reflection pieces like this.\nThe Good Smash at IUB. Full Bloom 6! Grinding punish is bearing fruits even under really poor conditions Reinforced my fears/need to look for solutions to YS top platform The Bad Controller broke CONTROLLER BROKE, Dillon STUPID and did not get 2 good ones ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/kill_roy_vol_6/","summary":"","title":"Kill Roy Vol. 6"},{"content":"The Dark Tournament + Luigi’s Mansion\nThis is going to be a shorter writeup for a couple of smaller tournaments but I still want to keep this habit up. I think it’s a good thing to do as a personal journal/reflection piece to keep myself accountable if nothing else.\nDARK TOURNAMENT The Dark Tournament was a small tournament held in Evansville, IN about on Saturday on Oct 29th 2022. It only had about 15 entrants for Melee, but three of those entrants were Essy, MadTyro, and myself. I ended up getting second at that tournament, beating Essy in WFs but falling in 2 sets during grands. Outside the game, the tournament was mostly characterized by its incredible runtime. The event started at 2pm and lasted until almost 10, with only an 8 person PM bracket and a 14 person Melee bracket. I don’t want to throw Trin or any of the other organizers under the bus over this. Trin is an overwhelmingly positive force for the Melee and PM scenes, but I do have some strong criticisms over having things take that long. I felt like my time was not respected and I ended up getting home late when I had a tournament the next day too, and it ended up making the weekend very draining. It was unnecessary, and should have been avoided, even streaming all of top 8. I share a degree of blame for this: I probably could have won PM grands in one set but ended up trying to win the first one with secondaries, and then 3-0’d with Marth in set two. In my defense, this was before Melee started, and I had no way of knowing how things would go, but I still probably should have just given it my all the whole time since it was in bracket regardless.\nAs for my bracket experience itself, it too was kind of characterized by the amount of down time. I had only one match before winner’s semis, and then played Ashley, a Sheik from Cincinatti I had yet to meet. I 3-0’d Ashely pretty summarily, but she did impress me with some of her decision making and reactions, and I had also played her pretty extensively in friendlies before the set. She made the extremely questionable decision to strike to FD game one, but otherwise I think played a decent set and just for the most part got outplayed and outpolished, just both losing the majority of interactions and dropping more than I did, no real fundamental issues with her approach.\nFor winner’s finals I played Essy, who went Sheik for the first two games. Game one was basically a punish exhibition we put on against each other that I happened to edge out. Very stiff neutral on both sides without any real slickness or feeling out process, but that isn’t uncommon for game ones. Game two I took an early lead and she made the (IMHO) questionable decision to remain Zelda after a recovery and then upon respawning, which made the game pretty lopsided in a way it didn’t need to be. I’m a big believer in just taking the hit from Marth if you respawn as Zelda, as you rarely ever need to take more than 20 percent. Playing about a stock and a half made that game not close, and was a turning point in that set. She swapped to Marth in game 3 and counterpicked FD, and I was able to win pretty handily. I hit a bunch of level one dash attacks on dashback reads that allowed me to hit pretty hard and ended up kind of running over her. I do not expect another Marth ditto would be nearly so simple, and the ditto is always scary, let alone against a player of her caliber. Still, it netted me the 3-0, and I was already getting tired of the tournament’s length and not having anything to eat so I took it.\nFor grands I played Essy again, now playing Fox. I ended up losing 6-1, getting 3-0’d the first set including losing a game on FD to her Ice Climbers. Other than that FD game, the set was mostly characterized by my consistently terrible edgeguards and flubs, contrasted with Essy managing to consistently curtail my stocks around 90. She probably has the most consistent jab upsmash confirms (and upsmash confirms in general) I’ve ever played with, and I didn’t do a good job at all of cc punishing the attempts (not that all of the attempts were bad/ccable). I also missed the tech on waveshine upsmash I think every time it was attempted. That in particular is solo lab-able and something I will put in the work on. As for the FD game: Did you know that if you get grabbed in the corner by ice climbers a lot, you’ll lose? It turns it, that’s exactly how that MU works! Ugh.\nThe second set was mostly more of the same, with my inability to close losing it for me. Game one in particular was one of the most egregious throws of my entire career. I was up 3 to 1 with absolutely no need to put her in position to make a comeback, but ended up both killing myself and getting shined at low percent to lose the game. I played to my exact loss condition, and boy did I find it. I was pretty upset after these sets, not because of the losses to Essy, who is a player I respect a lot, but because I feel like I just work too hard to miss so much, particularly the edgeguards. Before my punish game was strong at all, my edgeguards on Fox were good. You would never have guessed it watching my tourney sets Saturday, and this has become a common theme for me in tournament under pressure.\nTHINGS TO WORK ON No drift/drift back double fair facing the right.\nEdgeguarding Fox in tournament (apparently completely different?)\nTeching Fox upsmash into grab\nLugi’s Mansion\nLuigi’s Mansion was a house tournament on Oct 30th, 2022. The top seeds at this one were also Essy and I, but this one also had the majority of the KY Melee scene, including Reeve, Wicked, Wens, and most of the rest of the active KY Melee PR. For a house tournament, it was very well run, with Cakemix and Grognar doing a great job. I also want to take a moment to highlight the large pot bonus (well over 500 dollars) and food provided by the host, which are not at all standard for a house tournament I want to extend my thanks once again to the host, who certainly put a good deal of time and money into the event.\nFor notable bracket runs this weekend, the star had to be Wens, who 3-0’d Essy at this tournament in quarter’s and then went on to double eliminate Reeve. Honestly just a stellar performance from him, maybe the best of his career. He had been due for something like this for quite a while, but I think just struggled to put together his pretty executionally demanding style in bracket. Not on that Sunday though.\nAs for my bracket, I won the tournament without dropping a game. I’d be lying if I said I played particularly well. I definitely just kind of did the bare minimum necessary to win every game, and edged out my opponents despite nearly being in a state of panic for some of my games. I don’t know why I was so nervous for this event; the money wasn’t on my mind at all, and these were all players I had played many times before. Maybe I was subconsciously wanting to win extra hard after losing the previous day. I know that I really, really, wanted to rematch Essy at this tournament, as I know I can put on a better performance vs Fox than I had shown the previous day. Regardless, that didn’t happen, and I ended up playing against a Peach player returning from a long layoff, and then a Luigi player round two who was probably the most egregious no neutral masher I have ever played against. I hate to be harsh towards my opponents, but I feel almost as though something had to be said about this one. It was frankly a silly way to play the game. Some players are good enough to force you to actually interact, and you can’t just fling yourself at them and then mash neutral air/down b out of hitstun. I hope he learns that lesson.\nMy first set in bracket was against a Cinci player known as Aubergine, who played Falcon the first two games and then Fox game three. I’m not going to lie: I have no idea what she was doing on Falcon. Those games were not close at all and I don’t think I felt my control slip for a second. When she went Fox game three, it was a tightly contested affair and I felt like we could have played a relatively competitive set had she just stayed on Fox the whole time. Perhaps her Falcon was just playing off, but her Fox felt very solid and my humble recommendation to her (if this showing was representative of both) would be to focus on it.\nFor Winner’s Semis, I played Wicked as projected. Wicked is someone I’ve played a good amount this past year or so (which makes sense, #1 in TN vs #2 in KY) and this wasn’t one of our better sets. I won 3-0, but we both dropped a good bit, and I think we both played more nervously than usual, or at least I know I did. Game 3 in particular was a definite throw from him, as I made a three stock comeback I had no real business making on Dreamland. Sometimes you manage to claw victory from the jaws of defeat, and sometimes your opponent lets it slip through their fingers, and I think it’s important for growth to be able to recognize which one happened. I’d love to say I mounted a brilliant comeback, but that’s not what went donw there. Wicked didn’t tap it in, and I took what was given to me. Not the way I want to get it done, but I’ll take it.\nFor Winner’s Finals, I played Wens, who as mentioned previously was on a tear. I had warmed up with him for our semis sets quite a bit and knew he was playing solidly that day, so I was ready for a good set. I played a very nervous/shaky game one, but managed to get it by (FINALLY), closing out some good edgeguards on Fox. Game two I went up by a decent bit and then…Wen’s controller broke with a trigger issue.. He started full hopping repeatedly on top platform trying to maybe coax the trigger into working with repeated presses, and I thought he was just mad (which was very odd; he had had great composure all day and wasn’t down that much), but after the game he explained the issue and had to go work on his controller. Some people would have been upset about icing at this point, but honestly there’s now way your controller breaking mid-set benefits you more than the other guy unless you were just having a panic attack and the other guy was white hot and playing the game of his life. Neither of those things were going on here, and I felt really bad for him to have his amazing run dampened by this. Regardless, he did get it fixed eventually and we then proceeded to play a game three that went much the same as game two.\nFor grands, I played Wens again and played a pretty similar set, just with closer games two and three on DL, which makes sense given the controller issues. I started game one with a really explosive 0 to death to start it off, but also dropped a pretty critical edgeguard that would have really tipped things hard in my favor. Still, the first stock was enough of a difference maker that I was able to take it, and then two tight games on DL. Game three in particular was down to the wire, with me almost at upsmash percent and Wens dying to an utilt off the side at about 160. I won’t say it was a close 3-0, because FD exists, but I thought it was a little better played than WFs on both sides.\nTHINGS TO WORK ON Edgeguard Fox in tournament. I know what to do. I just have to do it. Nerves. IDK why I was so nervous at a house tournament, but I should manage those better. Maybe my adrenaline was being weird doing two tourneys in two days, not sure. ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/dark_tournament_and_luigis_mansion/","summary":"","title":"The Dark Tournament + Luigi's Mansion"},{"content":"The Big House 10 was a historic tournament. Of all the tournaments this year, it has probably been the most discussed, the most reported on, and the most memorable. I’m not sure if I can say anything new about the event itself that hasn’t been said already.\nFor my 2 cents, the scheduling at BH wasn’t awful, but it could have been a little better. Singles I think was fine, no one was playing at 10pm into 10am the next day, but the way doubles/singles were scheduled in relation to one another left something to be desired. I had a block of doubles at noon Friday, a second block at 4, a block of singles at 6, and my singles wave 2 at 8. I was the last set on stream Friday at almost 10pm and began at noon. That’s not quite on the level of Riptide’s bonkers Sunday scheduling, but it was far from ideal. Furthermore, the people who made top 8 of doubles had to play at 11am the next day, which was early enough and in an inconvenient enough slot stream-wise that None didn’t even bother to show up. I really do feel like TOs this year have been almost conspiring to kill doubles with the way it has been treated, and I wish more of the community would be vocal in opposition to that. I was told by someone at the event that “No one is pointing a gun at your head and making you enter doubles”, but honestly, we shouldn’t have to choose between entering doubles and being exhausted. We can and should do better.\nI must of course also beat my unfrozen stadium drum here. I don’t have anything new to say about it (you can read my Riptide writeup if you’re interested), but it does indeed suck.\nOther than those two points, I can’t really think of anything “wrong” with The Big House. It’s hard to find a setup when R1 pools are going on, but that’s really just the nature of a supermajor. Everything ran smoothly and on time, there were plenty of volunteers/staff available, and the tournament didn’t try anything particularly wacky in the way it was run. It was a classic supermajor experience and they pulled it off without a hitch, which is something to be applauded. There is a reason why TBH is the mecca for MW Melee, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t continue being so as long as Juggleguy wants to run it.\nAs for the bracket, I’m not going to say anything about amsa, Soonsay, or Leffen. Those have already been discussed to death, and one more person saying “Wow Leffen did bad” or “amsa cool and good” isn’t really going to accomplish anything. I will say though that amsa’s victory did end up overshadowing Soonsay’s spectacular run somewhat, and while understandable, that’s still unfortunate because it was a truly fantastic performance.\nOutside of the titans, there were interesting happenings throughout the bracket. Franz very notably made it to 17th, getting revenge on BBB and beating a red hot Azel, who was coming off upsets on both me and Krudo to make it to the top 24 qualifier round. Duck and Morsecode notably outperformed their seeds, but in truth I don’t think those really surprised anyone. I still think Morsecode is the best active Samus main and Duck is an all-time great who has had plenty of time to acclimate to his new mains, even if he hasn’t been entering as much. If you were too surprised by either of their runs, I think you probably just haven’t been paying attention. TRT also had a nice run to 17th, beating Squid and Lunar Dusk while being the beneficiary of the Plup DQ. I was surprised to learn he was seeded below Squid for this, and while I totally understand due to his lack of activity, it was hardly a shock to see him take that one. Still, the Lunar Dusk win is nice.\nOn the flipside of notable performances, CPU0 got 256th. Yeah. Not sure what to say about that one. Everyone is allowed a bad day, and I’m sure he’ll bounce back. Magi getting 49th is also notable, although given her bracket I am not at all surprised. Sirmeris is a beast and I’m glad he’s finally starting to get recognized as such, and Ginger is a bad loss for almost no one. Skerzo at 65th is also a little surprising, but given that he ran into Colbol and the aforementioned Morsecode, hardly a big deal in terms of blemishes on his resume. Slowking at 96th is also certainly an upset, but when your losses are Franz and Majersk for that spot it speaks more to how stacked BH is than anything else. Honestly, looking back, other than CPU0 having a very bad day, all of these definitely speak more to the talent depth present than anything else. Big House is just that tournament.\nPERSONAL Firstly, can I say something weird? I actually just kind of like Detroit. I like how stellar the hot dogs are. I like that you can walk to places downtown. I like that it isn’t ridiculously expensive. I know the smasher mantra is to say “Ewww Detroit…but hey it’s Big House!” but I just don’t really agree. Detroit has been good to me every time I’ve been there for Melee. The food is good, the downtown area is walkable, and I’ve never felt unsafe despite the lingering reputation the city has. It’s easily up there with Worcester for my favorite area of the majors I’ve been to this year. The only downside was how expensive lodging was, but with the help of a few (five) friends even that wasn’t too bad.\nI would also like to take a special section to thank Melee Stats for helping me get there. I was planning to do BH without any help from them, but at the last second (Monday evening) my ride fell through and I started to have car troubles. They came in lifesavingly clutch and provided me with a plane ticket…which I proceeded to promptly almost squander by missing my flight. It couldn’t be helped; there was over a full hour of slowdown on I-65 on the way there (on a route that typically takes less than an hour to begin with), but thankfully as a reward for listening to the Southwest Airlines hold music on speakerphone in my car for 40 minutes they let me change the flight for less than 10 dollars. Still, nothing like a big dose of STRESS to start your major trip.\nBRACKET For doubles, I finally had a decent performance! Falling to None/Spud in winner’s and Faceroll/Zamu in loser’s, Majersk and I got 17th. For once, I thought my new teammate and I had pretty good synergy off the bat, and he did a phenomenal job of finding the kills I as Marth could not. Even the sets we lost felt doable, which is an awesome thing given the caliber of our opposition. Our wins against Paladin/Ambisinister and Lord English’s team were particularly gratifying, as the former was a double Fox team whose members I have a lot of respect for, and the latter were unseeded killers who washed us game 1 and we got to showcase our adaptation. We did benefit from the Aura/Nut DQ in winner’s (they were supposed to play us in the round Ambi/Paladin did), but we also had to play Faceroll/Zamu early in loser’s so I think it balanced out. No complaints here, and I’d run the team again in the future (still going to learn Fox for dubs though). .\nFor singles, I played a little bit shaky all of Friday, but for the most part kept my composure and was able to lean on my punish game/make critical adaptations when the base level of my gameplay wasn’t up to snuff.\nMy first set was against a box Falcon who wasn’t bad but made the rather unfortunate choice of counterpicking me to YS. I had a chat with him after the set about that decision and hopefully was able to change his mind, but in part because of that I won the set 2-0. My next and last set in R1 pools was against up and coming Marth player Zam, who actually managed to get a game. I was a pretty heavy favorite going into the set, and in spite of that it probably looked dead even to onlookers for the first two games. Marth dittos are truly terrifying, and Zam proved to be a competent player who was just winning a great deal of the initial mixups. Still, game 3 I was able to cash in on some movement reads and clean up my edgeguards enough to win a bit of a blowout, and so made it out of R1 pools in winner’s.\nIn round two, my first set was against strong Cali Fox Casper, who very nearly took game one before I made a comeback with a big 0-death stock at the end, and managed to beat me on Stadium game two. In game three I deliberated very hard where to take him (FoD or back to Stadium), but eventually chose FoD since I had just lost on Stadium and didn’t want to risk double rock/fire. The story of the set til that point was Casper going for safe damage and finishing his combos early with upsmash, and me going for longer extensions/techchases and missing a good deal of them. In the FoD game, I was able to cash in on some neutral reads and tighten up my punishes and really turned things around, nearly going up four to one at one point. This is actually a really common issue I see from players coming up in really stacking regions: playing for the upset/not to get upset rather than to win the tournament because Fiction or some titan like that is at every local and beating them consistently feels so out of reach. It’s a problem that tends to work itself out in time; people aim one upset higher until they’re trying to beat (insert top player) and need a style that will do that, but for the most part I think it’s a mistake long term to play for stability over correctness/getting the utmost on your openings. Still, it’s tournament and things are loose and weird, and Capser is a very good player and I don’t mean to critique him too harshly.\nMy next set was against my Melee Stats teammate Pipsqueak (wow…another tournament where I’m seeded to play my MS teammate from Sweden, very cool). This set was really really frustrating for me because I take an enormous amount of pride in not losing to people’s soulless counterpick secondaries (which I absolutely saw the Pip Falcon as at the time even if it isn’t), and I felt like I got preparation gapped. Pipsqueak’s neutral defaults just seemed to hard counter mine, and he played a very weird, Gahtzu-esque game where he eschewed “normal” neutral in favor of basically only looking for options that would lead directly to a kill regardless of percent. I wasn’t prepared, and I suffered for it big time game one where I just got crushed. I had a better handle on things games two and three (and of course, YS is amazing for Marth), but I just did not have the execution to close things out. I techchased fine, and hit my combo links reasonably well, but my spacing was just off and when that happens Falcon kills you, simple as that. I do feel as though the spacing being off (Pip was just always landing in a slightly different spot than I was expecting him to be, especially off being hit and then drifting/jumping away) was influenced in part by his being on an all digital controller. Instant 1.0 cardinal direction switches go kind of crazy. But still, I don’t want to take too much away from Pip. He is obviously an amazing player who made quality decisions to get the win, and even taught me about a new jab/stomp interaction on shield from talking to him after the set. That interaction and failing to understand it was pretty big in the set (getting stomped at low percent is arguably Marth’s biggest “avoid at all costs” in the MU, in contention with getting grabbed in the corner at 50-60), but other than that I felt like my problems revolved around getting outplayed/outprepped/and especially out executed rather than flaws in my basic gameplan.\nMy set in loser’s to make top 64 was one that I knew I was going to have to play and was VERY unhappy about, which was against Paladin. We weren’t technically seeded to play; he was supposed to to lose to Erik and then even if he won play and lose to the loser of ROM/Eggy. However, I knew Paladin would beat those players. Don’t get me wrong: those players are all good (shoutouts to hidden boss among hidden bosses ROM), but Paladin is just that dude. This was his first major in years, and I don’t blame the seeders for not realizing how good he’s gotten, but I’ve spoken before about how I think he’s the actual second best in TN, and if we were stricter about geographical requirements for PR I think he’d be the uncrowned king. He’s the only guy in the region that has me really looking over my shoulder because of his combination of not just skill, but work ethic, main, and youth. Unfortunately for him, I don’t really get nervous playing with my homies/training partners in tournaments. I’ve talked a lot about how it’s the pressure of being in competition that gets to me, not being on stage or the size/name of the tournament, or even the opponent, but Paladin is just someone I’ve played against so much now that I can’t really get nervous against him. I think it showed in this set where, while game one was close at first, I kind of just kiss of death punish gamed my way to a pretty dominant victory. It was easily my best played set of the weekend, and I’m glad that it was on stream, but I was extremely frustrated to not only have to play a sponsor teammate but someone from my region who I play with very regularly to make it out of pools at a supermajor. We both deserved better. Looking back at the VOD, my movement was pretty choppy even if most of the decisions were broadly good, so even when I perceive myself as playing well I need to remember to review the VOD and critique myself with clear eyes.\nMy first opponent on Saturday for top 64 was Azel, who beat me 3-0 with his Sheik. I don’t remember anything about this set other than being consistently off on punishing his rolls/descent, and I don’t think I’m going to review it either. The story of my Saturday at TBH was honestly dominated by receiving news that a close family friend had passed away, and my memory of the day as a whole remains a bit clouded. I did a good job of keeping my spirits up before the set/going into it, but once I hit the first bit of adversity in the set, it was just too much. I couldn’t handle it. I’m fully aware that this is an excuse, and that every loser has an excuse, but I do feel the need to justify why I don’t really have anything to recount about this set. Hats off to Azel: he’s a great player, underrated if anything, and it’s extremely possible (likely even, given his victory over Krudo in the next round) that he would have just beaten me anyway, but this is one I think I’m just going to write off in my personal memory because I don’t think I was myself and I don’t want to remember the experience.\nSo in summary for my bracket run it was going fine until tragedy kinda took everything off the rails, and I don’t have as much to say about as I normally would. I had a good time on Sunday watching top 8 and hanging out with my friends playing Melee.\nMy takeaways for things to work on Navigating the Falcon shield pressure situation Pip taught me Managing making spacing adjustments more quickly A way to readjust to broken expectations faster. When someone throws the whole playbook out the window, you have to be ready to do the things that beat what they’re doing IMMEDIATELY, not the things you expected them to do. ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/the_big_house_10/","summary":"","title":"The Big House 10"},{"content":"This is my third tourney write-up, and I have to say it will be the most mixed yet. I’m aware that is also the tourney I performed worst at of those three, and so may be biased, but I will endeavor to keep my personal disappointment from having any influence on this on my overview of the tournament itself.\nEVENT PROS Riptide had an abundance of setups, and even during bracket Saturday, it was never a struggle to find a setup to warm up on/play friendlies. This has been the trend at both majors I’ve attended this year, and while I have some concerns that this may indicate a degree of flagging attendance, I have to say that for the average attendee, it frankly rules. As I have said in the past, we go to Melee tournaments to play Melee, and it feels great to be able to do so. The TOing was also very well done. I don’t think there was a single instance on the melee side of people not knowing where to be or being unfairly DQ’d, and the tournament ran according to schedule very smoothly. Additionally, the TOs quickly and decisively dealt with the bizarre NoFluxes racism incident, which I applaud even if I must say I found the resulting discourse a little tedious by days two and three of the event. For those out there who take things a little less seriously, I also must say that the Kalahari did indeed bang, and if the idea of a fun waterpark tourney appeals to you, that part is by all accounts excellent. I am relying on secondhand info about the waterpark, since I was there pretty purely as a competitor, but I heard nothing negative all weekend about it or the venue other than typical (albeit fair) complaints about exorbitant resort pricing.\nCONS I am not the first, second, third, or fifteenth person to comment on this, but I have to say: The Riptide schedule was awful. I have never been to a larger tournament where I disagreed with the scheduling as hard as I did for Riptide. For anyone unfamiliar, pools ran in rolling waves (Wave A R1 at 12:00, Wave A R2 and Wave B R1 at 2:00, etc.), which I think is a fine format, but the execution here was…not good. There was a wave of pools beginning at 6pm, which meant their R2 ended at 10pm. Top 32 started the next day at 10am. This is not acceptable, and should never have made it past the planning phase. I honestly have no idea what anyone in charge was thinking with this. Starting Sunday at 10am was also wholly unnecessary. There was a large break between top 32 and top 8, and it resulted in some players having to play for entirely too long. Jmook for instance had to play me at 10am sharp and then played Hbox in loser’s finals well after 8pm. That represented almost 11 hours of being prepared to play at a high level, and while many of the players in top 8 handled it with aplomb, they shouldn’t have had to. Furthermore, there were several accessible solutions to this issue: A singles wave could have run on Friday. Singles could have run to a smaller top cut on Saturday (there were plenty of setups/time). Singles could even have started later on Sunday and things would have been fine. Regardless, both my opinion and the apparent consensus hold that the scheduling was the single biggest flaw with Riptide, but would be easily fixable for future iterations.\nNext, I’m not sure why the culture seems to be centered around pretending as though we don’t care/notice, but having unfrozen stadium at this event was simply a hard negative. While I myself only played one tourney game on it, and even ended up benefitting from the shenanigans, several pretty high profile sets were influenced by random, uncompetitive stadium transformations. Zuppy in particular was robbed by an infinite in the pit last stock game 5 vs Axe, and it was really sad to see that and similar situations happen all weekend. I do not agree with the prevailing idea of giving tournaments a pass because they are partnered with Panda/SWT or whatever circuit that is currently cowering in fear of Nintendo. I think those circuits are a net good for the scene, particularly for viewers, but in truth the number of PLAYERS they benefit is vanishingly small. SWT for example may have a very large pot, but let’s be honest: The pool of players that stand to actually rake in a significant, yearly-income-influencing amount from it includes maybe Zain, Mango, Hbox, Jmook, ibdw, Leffen, Wizzy, and a few others. For the rest of us, I think we’re better off prioritizing events that put player experience first. I realize that this may represent a bit of a bind for TOs, but I also think I have to invoke “not my problem” on that one. Everyone will go to Genesis and Big House regardless, but if we have the choice to travel to one of two lower-mid size majors, and one is running unfrozen, I think it’s simply logical for that to factor into a player’s decision.\nLastly, I think there was some questionable seeding in places for the event at Riptide. Or rather, I think the seeding just didn’t run deep enough. Among all of the higher seeds I think things were done pretty fairly/intelligently, but there were simply too many good players going unseeded in their pools. Some, like my friend phx, I understand; that kid hasn’t been to anything, nobody knows that he’s good. But too often I saw players PR’d in their region seeded to go 0-2/1-2 because the seeding didn’t run deep enough. Almost as often, I also saw these players either have their day ruined or ruin somebody else’s day.\nBRACKET Surprisingly little to say about this one! I like to highlight cinderella runs and players below the very top level here, so Plup being in winner’s side grands post-hiatus, Zain getting reverse 3-0’d by S2J, etc. are all very cool, but they’ve already been discussed to death. For the most part, people in the top 32 or so seeds only got upset by people very close to them in terms of skill/seed. Magi over Axe, Pleeba over Wally, and Justus over Abu are all a bit notable, but hardly outlandish given the character MUs and skill of the players involved. Other than that, the real story was the unseeded killers I mentioned above, which would take a whole other essay to go over.\nPERSONAL Let me get this out of the way: I played some of the worst Melee of my life on Sunday at Riptide. I think there were a lot of people who saw my set with Jmook and said “Oh well it’s Jmook” in regards to the fashion in which I got bodied, but let me tell you: that’s not what was going on there. I am very glad I only had to play Jmook and Zuppy Sunday, because I would absolutely have lost to someone significantly worse than either of them. I thought I prepared as responsibly as I could. I went to bed early, got plenty of sleep, and was the first one in the venue grinding by 8am. Still, when it came time to perform in tourney sets, my hands were so cold I flinched when pressing them to my face, and played terribly. I think my big mistake here was not eating before coming to the venue. My reasoning at the time was that I didn’t want to upset my stomach (I have a very nervous stomach before tournaments usually). Upon further thought though, that really wasn’t the move. I typically play a little bit of Melee during my lunch break, sometimes before eating, and often have similar issues with cold hands in that setting. I don’t know scientifically if being fasted/having lower blood sugar would result in poor peripheral circulation, but I do recognize a pattern. Other people also seem to notice it and have commented on “lunch break Grab” as a joke about how much worse I am in that setting. I also think I will experiment with some external hand warmers before sets for the morning ones in the future, as unfortunately I don’t think 10am bracket is going away forever, especially with Big House coming up.\nFor doubles, Riptide was probably the single worst performance of my career. Den and I were seeded to get 13th, and we went 1-2. 1-2. That is not a typo. If you hear anything reading that, it is the astral projection of my screams embedded into the webpage. We even almost went 0-2, going down a game to a double Puff team with OG Kid, which is a team that Marth/Fox should frankly have a field day with. I have absolutely no idea what happened. Every single thing that could have gone wrong went wrong in every set. I think I get raw upsmashed about as many times in a year as Hexjo/Cardd did to me in our first set of the day. During the set with PGH Carroll and Genghis Connor, Den’s hurtbox seemed to be magnetically and magically drawn to the opponent, as I’m pretty sure he spent the entirety of that set in hitstun. It was maddening, and I am going to start having someone record my doubles sets to study, because this is unacceptable. Additionally, this pushed me even more towards developing a doubles Fox. Marth being almost completely unable to force the issue in teams is immensely frustrating, especially when you are the stronger singles player on a team as I almost always am when teaming within my region.\nAs an aside for doubles, I have to comment that I was not pleased when Carroll punched my hand upon winning. I don’t mind being popped off on (I consider it an honor), and I’ve spent enough time punching things that I’m not worried about a round of bloody knuckles, but the borderline physical aggression of it does not sit well with me. Please, anyone that beats me (or loses to me, I’ve had the reverse happen as well) in the future, do not do this. I don’t harbor any resentment for Carroll over it but we should make it clear as a community that this isn’t how we want to act.\nFor singles, I’m going to be completely honest: it’s been a week, and I don’t remember anything about my first set at all. I couldn’t tell you the characters (A Falco? Maybe?) but it was a pretty typical “good player r1” and I didn’t draw an unseeded monster.\nFor my second set, I played TN native Wohlgey, who I actually had never played in tourney before. I was impressed by his speed and techskill, and I think even lost the first stock, but ultimately I think my neutral/punish were just a little too much and I ended up winning very dominantly. I had expected to play Trix at this point in the bracket, and ended up playing unusually well/loose for this early in the bracket because I was so pleased to not have to play against a good pikachu for my winner’s r2.\nFor my last set in R1 pools, I played the upcoming Sheik player Meep, who had upset Holiday to get there. Immediately, I was rather nervous: I feel fairly good against Sheik, but Sheik early in the bracket before I’ve had my big adrenaline dump is probably the scariest MU to get, as it’s easily Marth’s most execution intensive of the popular high tiers. Furthermore, I knew Meep was pretty good, and was playing well enough to score an upset. I hope no one noticed, but my teeth were literally chattering at a couple of points before and during the set. Predictably, my play suffered, and I made tons of flubs and questionable neutral decisions. I ended up winning game one very narrowly, in part I think thanks to an SD on Meep’s part, and proceeded to tighten things up significantly in game two, actually edgeguarding a couple of times and even managing to juggle Sheik correctly once or twice instead of panicking. Unfortunately, this all went south when Meep brought me from being up three to one down to two to one, where I promptly forgot how to play the game again. This culminated in me getting stage spiked by a fair at about 25 because I sat on the ledge like a moron instead of doing a normal getup like I was supposed to and losing the game. Game 3 was pretty close throughout, and Meep had some nervous drops here that he hadn’t in the rest of the set, for which I was grateful, because God knows how much I was missing. I end up being gifted a very cheesy, stadium-transformation-assisted combo to close Meep’s third stock that allowed me to hang on for the win. I sat there shaking my head for a good minute after the set, and I really hope Meep and his friends weren’t offended. I was upset with myself and Pokemon Stadium, not my opponent or anything else. I want to be clear through all this that I think Meep is a good player. He’s someone on the rise to watch, and has already beaten other good players. However, I have to be honest here as well. Meep performing excellently was not why this set was so close. Losing my mind due to nerves was the biggest deal here, and I have to do something about it. R1 pools are only getting harder and harder, and not every tourney format will give me as long to get in the groove.\nFor my last set of Saturday, I had Q the Doc player, who is certainly the strongest active Doc on the EC, and probably the second strongest globally after Franz. He also had just narrowly upset my MS teammate Sharp to make it to this round. I had actually randomly played friendlies with a Doc earlier in the day, which was nice, because it allowed me to refresh my mental notes for dealing with Doc. I mostly kept to my gameplan for this set (spamming spaced fair until Doc gets off the screen and I can play vs other characters), but I do agree with Crimson Blur’s criticism that I was sometimes tempted to go in with other options out of greed/impatience. Too many nairs in particular that granted Q opportunities for no reason, but other than that I was reasonably pleased with my play for the set. I also discovered during Game 1 just how much difficulty Doc has in challenging the top platform, and how much easier it is for Marth to get down vs Doc than it would be vs even the floaty top tiers. To Q: I’m sorry for abusing that during the set. I don’t like top platform camping people, and I don’t even think it’s that valuable of a thing in theory vs Doc, but in reality when I needed a mental reset, it came in clutch. Other than that, the story of the set was me getting 3 “monster tippers” in game two to win by a blowout, but they were all pretty cleanly part of a combo/pure neutral win and not random up fsmashes that couldn’t be replicated, so I was fine with that. I also applaud Q’s discipline not to constantly roll in even after being punished during this set, and I think he’s actually the first Doc I’ve played that doesn’t include “roll in and pray” as a central part of his gameplan. In terms of other things I can do better, I can be a little more aggressive with my fair placement, as I let Doc set up pills a little too freely.\nMy first match on Sunday was against Jmook, and while I already talked about my level of play Sunday, let me be clear: Jmook would have beaten me regardless of how I was playing. He was playing in that set arguably even better than he was at Shine, and I SD’d every game. It is actually astounding to me sometimes how low the error rates of players like him are. Even still, I felt like my gameplan really wasn’t the problem in this set, and instead my issues were execution, getting outplayed, and the aforementioned killing myself. When you aren’t executing, kill yourself, and get outplayed, you get 3-0’d, and that’s exactly what happened during this set. Not a whole lot else to say other than breaking down interactions, which goes beyond the scope of these pieces.\nMy final match of the tournament was against Zuppy, who also pretty swiftly 3-0’d me. Some people already know that I am pretty much the hater in chief when it comes to digital to analog conversion in controllers, but I want to be as final as possible in saying that Zuppy being on a rectangle had nothing to do with the outcome of this set. I pride myself on being a reasonable, evidence-based hater, and boxx shenanigans in this set were not the problem. Game one was primarily Zuppy punishing very well and shine spiking me at mid percents, and was probably the best anyone has ever punished my side b on recovery in tournament. It showed me that I need to side b much earlier (if at all) against Fox, and that my recovery in the MU was far too exploitable. I also adapted far too late to his tendency to play heavily toward dash dance drill in neutral, and ran my “default vs Fox neutral game” way too long. For the next two games, which were on FD, the story was more just about my drops. The fact of the matter is that you cannot expect to beat Foxes of Zuppy’s caliber when doing an average of about 15% off of a grab on FD. I think some onlookers might have thought it was nerves, but I actually kept my emotions pretty well in check during the set, just had icicle hands and couldn’t do things. This also manifested in goofy low execution edguards like nairing him back and forth across the stage at 170 against his firefox, which is something you should never see at high level. I SD’d my final stock of the set which made me mad and left a bad taste in my mouth, but it didn’t really matter; I was getting 3-1’d at best playing like that, and instead got 3-0’d. Funny thing is, both of those get you the same place in bracket.\nI did also get to play a few money matches on Sunday, funnily enough all against rectangle Fox players. I played vs Quiggles and Free Balloon Day, the former of which I beat and the latter of which I traded sets with, first losing and then winning a double or nothing run back, in which I told him to keep his money because I think double or nothing is silly. During all of these sets, I spent far too much mental energy being mad about my opponent’s controller and not enough actually playing the game. I may have kept a lid on it well during the Zuppy set but I was a poor competitor during these, and I need to get better at pressing the mute button on my personal feelings when it’s time to perform. Yes, I think it’s wildly unfair, but in the moment I have to adapt and overcome. Silent internal whining helps no one. Against both I just kind of won once I accepted that the threat range on short hop drill was going to feel unnatural and decided to shut up and hit my punishes.\nIn conclusion, my short tweet summary holds up well: I feel good about myself as a player for this event, but not good about my play in bracket. I only really had one shaky set Saturday, but Sunday when it counted I didn’t show up. It is up to me to adapt and do better in morning brackets in the future. I’m up for work every day at those hours, but morning standup meeting and bo5 with Jmook are in no universe even vaguely comparable in terms of mental/physical requirements.\nTHINGS TO WORK ON Recognizing Fox patterns faster Recovery vs intelligent/reactive Fox Out of game prep issues I discussed A broad pattern for the weekend was the value of crouch techchase and I will continue to grind it ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/riptide_2022/","summary":"","title":"Riptide 2022"},{"content":"EVENT PROS: We Need Some Space remains my favorite MW tournament series, almost certainly the most well TO’d, and my pick to take up Full Bloom’s mantle. Mason (Acid) is an amazing TO and Blitz is a perfect choice for a right hand man for the series. In terms of organizing, I have virtually nothing negative to say about the event. Super stacked event relative to the number of entrants, and the entrant numbers (137) weren’t even low! Overall I can’t imagine it being anything but a very positive experience whether you were a casual attendee, a serious competitor, or (from what little I’ve caught of the stream) a spectator. MeleeEveryday remains one of the most underappreciated streams in the game. Both pools and bracket ran in a smooth and timely manner; no long waits between sets but also no pressuring competitors to rush. The invited/flown in players were absolute gentlemen and excellent choices to have. If anyone wants to invite an MPGR top 50 player out to their tournament, Salt, Jflex, and Fiction are choices that will be well liked by all in attendance, and are fun players to watch for the stream to boot. I feel as though too many TOs just throw darts at a board of names when selecting who to bring out, and that was not the case here. Furthermore, amateur bracket was treated with an appropriate mix of levity and respect, which is a balance I think most TOs struggle with as well.\nCONS: There could have been more setups, and a few were running old versions of UCF. Not a big deal, and it’s impossible to police all community setups, but if the event is looking for anything to improve on for next year, that’s really all I’ve got as far as attendee experience. At no point was there anything I’d call an actual shortage of setups though. My one major critique of decisions made by the organizers was allowing HPR to substitute in for Voorheese. This was not fair to anyone in HPR’s bracket path. I consider Voorheese a friend, and I don’t know HPR at all, but I find the idea that they would have been interchangeable in seed/skill to be\u0026hellip;extremely dubious, at best. HPR tore up the bracket a bit and that didn’t surprise me a bit. I know there is pressure to let the homies enter, but I wish organizers had stood firm on this bit. Lowercasehero in particular is a player with potential T100 ballot potential (IMO) that got screwed over by this.\nBRACKET What a bracket! In an event with this much talent density, it’s all but impossible for everything to go according to seed, and predictably, it did not here. The single standout runs of the bracket are almost certainly Q? and JustJoe. Neither were seeded to make top 13, and both got 5th with Q? Picking up wins over Ben, Reeve, and Killablue, only falling to two old school Sheiks, who I imagine have to be some of the toughest draws possible for a doc. JustJoe notably upset Ben, who had a rough tournament. Driving nine hours solo (I think) almost certainly had something to do with that. I talked to Ben after the tournament and he expressed doubt he’d make that drive again, and I don’t blame him. JustJoe also notably went up 2-0 on Fiction before suffering a heartbreaking reverse 3-0, falling to loser’s where he would go up 2-0 on me…only to suffer a heartbreaking reverse 3-0 again. Ouch. Regardless, it was a good tourney for him and I think his star is bright. Probably the next biggest upset was Coffee over Essy, who had a relatively rough performance as well, falling to Shabo for 13th as the fifth seed. I am of the opinion however that Shabo is in contention for most underrated player in the world, so I would certainly still consider Essy stock to be very high value at the moment. For more local results to the event, Blue 3-0’d Rik in very impressive fashion, which I know was a significant thing for him and represented a true old guard vs new guard meeting. For my part, I also made a decent run, beating Ober in winners and then going through a gauntlet of Shabo, Drephen, JustJoe, and Jflex before falling to Salt for 3rd, who had also put me in loser’s.\nPERSONAL Driving up the night before was a good decision given that doubles started at 9am my time and it was an almost 4hr drive. Staying at the motel 6 was NOT, however, and was a mistake I will not make again. Definitely the oddest thing from a competition standpoint was Essy teaching me a little meditation before the doubles bracket, which was…interesting. I definitely felt that I was almost too relaxed during the doubles sets, but it was a nice change of pace from always being too intense. Definitely reminded me to continue searching for ways to modulate my level of autonomic arousal during competition, as it is habitually extremely high. Both of the doubles sets Essy and I lost were uniquely frustrating, because they both looked like lopsided 3-0s on stream but felt imminently winnable while playing them. It was as though every possible way the ball could have bounced poorly for us, it did. I didn’t feel like Essy or I played egregiously poorly or that we had a bunch of major drops. I suppose these things just happen sometimes.\nFor singles, I was proud of my mental composure and preparation, for the most part. I only got tilted a little bit at GIOGOAT’s cheering during my set with Drephen (his cheering was in relation to an unrelated set), and I think it might have costed me game 3. I need to purchase more isolating headphones, or at least turn the volume up. I handled in game adversity very well, but reverted back to some lazy/nervous habits on FD in my set with JustJoe. I’ve gotten to the point in friendlies where I can punish monster 99% of Foxes on that level even without a good neutral read, but I am not yet capable of the same in tournament. My set with Ober was a classic example of me letting my foot off the gas when I got too comfortable, and I should be better. I let game one be close for basically no reason but getting lazy once I was up 3 to 1. Game 3 I also started slow and was too pleased with myself for a dominant game two. My set with Ferocitii was reasonably well played, but did have a shaky game one before I found my groove.. My set with Shabo was disappointing in a way, because I think friendly session Shabo handily beats the version of me from that set, but I did manage to clutch out a tight game two to enable the 3-0. Definitely a set where both players played as lesser versions of themselves. My Salt sets were probably the most interesting, and our winner’s set was probably the most back and forth set I’ve ever played. I believe I got jv 4 stocked game two and then 4 stocked Salt the next game. Absolute bloodbath of MU, both character and player wise. My biggest takeaway from that set was that I need a better plan for DL. I struggled mightily to close out stocks, and I was a bit lost when it came to challenging the top platform. When I went down 0-2 in LFs, I knew I was in for a hard time. It might have been fine if not for DL, but the MU just isn’t doable when Falcon lives to 200 and gets a free safespot. These are me problems, not necessarily MU problems, and I’ll work on them. My only real “regret” play wise from that set was that I got absolutely blown up at the start of game five in winner’s quarter’s, in a way that was completely avoidable and I believe should not have happened. Otherwise, Salt outplayed me enough that I would have had to drop basically nothing to win the games I lost, which just isn’t a reasonable expectation. The only solution is to get better. Sometimes the problem really is that you just played bad, but that wasn’t the case here. I need to improve my gameplan, not just my gameplay. As for my set with Jflex, game two was monumentally sloppy on both ends, and I would have had no chance in that game if it weren’t for it being on FD, since that’s just the way Marth/Sheik goes. Flex even talked with me for a moment after game two after the set, said it felt like he had won it, and honestly I found it hard to disagree. Game 4 of that set was rough, as Jflex played at his absolute floor. Not how I wanted that one to end, but I’ll take it. I also attempted the Reeve pivot downsmash setup once, but missed the spacing. It was working well in friendlies and I’m a believer in it though, so I will continue to grind it. My set with JustJoe was…strange. He had an extremely unusual cadence and gameplan. Very, very focused on cc dash up punish, and incorporated tons of unusual pauses into his neutral. Once I adapted to this, I think I was able to take control reasonably comfortably, but it took me entirely too long. I also got caught with the same uthrow-\u0026gt;wavedash utilt setup WAY too many times on FD, which is definitely a mixup at best and not at all real.\nTakeaways/what to practice Challenging the top plat and closing out stocks on DL vs Falcon Zain ledgecancel fair edgeguard vs Falcon Pivot downsmash edgeguard setup vs Sheik a la Reeve ","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/melee/we_need_some_space_3/","summary":"","title":"We Need Some Space 3"},{"content":"This is adapted from an essay I wrote for one of my college courses in April 2015. The original version was tied to the book \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s Talk About Love\u0026rdquo; by Carl Wilson, but references have been removed and the thesis has been revised to make the text relevant to those unfamiliar with that work. The original prompt was to write a piece exploring a \u0026ldquo;taste object\u0026rdquo;, I.E. something that you may have a taste for an others do not. Both my writing and my Jiu Jitsu have matured since this was written, but upon review I think it still possesses some value. Also note that this work references some survey data that I collected that is no longer available.\nI shake the hand of a stranger in mutual agreement that we will attempt to simulate either maiming or choking one another unconscious, with the understanding that we will stop only when time is called or one of us has surrendered. The man against whom I am pitted is nearly half again my size and looks as though he is trying out for the part of a more carefully groomed Lou Ferrigno in a modern remake of the old Hulk television show. There was a time, not so long ago, when this would have intimidated me. But I am now jaded to this experience, having lived it a thousand times before. A moment later, a buzzer goes off, we shake hands, and our dance begins. The external world peels away, leaving only thought and kinetic sensation. I do my best to eliminate the former from the equation. My reality becomes: hand fight, grip break, 2-on-1, armdrag, back-take, scramble, top position, x-pass, torreando, underhook, re-pummel, backstep, pass and solidify, pin, kimura, scramble and stand, clinch, sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, breakfall, shrimp, reguard, hook sweep… and time is called*.* I smile and shake the hand of my new friend, genuinely grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow. The time for struggle over, I sit on the edge of the mat and slowly rub my surgically repaired knee, wondering if it will ever really be the same again. I relish the easy movement of my fingers along my leg, acutely aware that to open and close them will be a more painful affair come morning; I am twenty-one years old and already have arthritic flare-ups in my hands. I briefly consider taking a break from training, just long enough to heal those recurring injuries, and then laugh quietly at the notion, knowing that it will require something crippling to keep me off the mats and death to keep me away for good. Still, the pain is not insignificant, and I dimly wonder: Why? What is it that keeps me coming back? But the better questions are: Why does coming back make me happy? And why can’t I be happy without coming back?\nWhat you have just read describes the end of a night of training in the martial art known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a style developed in (surprise!) Brazil during the early 1900s which focuses primarily on subduing opponents through superior grappling ability once both combatants have fallen to the ground. Why, one might ask of such a description, might one voluntarily choose to participate, nay, dedicate a sizeable portion of one’s life, to such an endeavor? The answer, I would submit, might best be explained as a matter of taste. Indeed, in this piece I will attempt to answer in terms of taste, drawing on history, surveys, interviews, and personal reflection what it is that draws people to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and what makes them stay, both in general and as opposed to the myriad other popular martial arts.\nFor the uninitiated, a brief history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (hereafter “BJJ” or simply “Jiu-Jitsu”) should be understood before one attempts to understand the culture and taste appeals of the art. BJJ stems from the early dissemination of Judo by the Japanese, which at that time was not always referred to as distinctly separate entity from Jiu-Jitsu. The two names are very similar, and not just in sound: the “Jiu” and “Ju” of the words are identical, meaning gentle or yielding, with “do” meaning most closely “way” and “jitsu” signifying “art” or “technique”. Judo eventually came to be the standardized name of the larger Japanese style and BJJ ended up keeping the older “jitsu”. The two arts became distinct when the Japanese teachers who first taught in Brazil returned to Japan after a few years of instruction, leaving the famous Gracie family and a few others to develop their Jiu-Jitsu without formal guidance. The development of the art continued in Brazil over the course of several generations, staying at first within families and then soon after shared with the public, with the guiding ideology of creating a grappling system that would enable smaller, weaker individuals to overcome bigger, stronger opponents through superior technical mastery, and would emphasize “live” practice against fully resisting training partners. The popularity of the style was originally spread through open challenges, public matches, and “dojo storms” in which rival martial arts schools would be entered and challenged. The art exploded in popularity in North America in 1993 when Royce Gracie won the no-rules fighting tournament that was UFC 1 against an array of larger and far more imposing opponents with seemingly little difficulty. The style continues to experience rapid growth worldwide and is commonly accepted to encompass three main facets: “street” self-defense, sport Jiu-Jitsu competition, and mixed martial arts (MMA)/Vale Tudo (the Brazilian no-holds-barred precursor to modern MMA). It also enjoys a reputation of high standards of instructor qualification and practicality relative to other martial arts, in part thanks to its stringent and relatively meritocratic ranking system. This is by no means a complete overview of BJJ or its history, and there are many who (in my opinion, credibly) dispute even the basic outline of this story. However, stories of martial arts’ origins often take on a character annoyingly reminiscent to that of creation myths, with similarly hazy details, and I have merely relayed the most popular version with as few questionable details as possible.\nIn my examination of people’s tastes as they relate to Jiu-Jitsu, I first turned to informal online surveys and interviews of my own training partners. The responses that I received were largely what I expected, but a great deal of BJJ culture sensitive interpretation was needed to tie the results to taste. When examining responses to questions such as “why did you start Jiu-Jitsu”, a few patterns become evident. Of course, there is the standard “there was a gym near me and the price wasn’t offensive so I walked in and tried it” where Jiu-Jitsu could be substituted with any martial art, but a number of answers were more revealing. Without question, the two most common answers were variations of “to get in shape” and “to learn to defend myself”. These are answers that, again, might be associated with any martial art, but when one reconsiders the history and culture surrounding Jiu-Jitsu, further meaning can be gleaned. As mentioned, BJJ is not a “soft” style practiced without resistance, and physical fitness is generally demanded and cultivated as a part of training, leading more educated “consumers” to seek it out as a likely candidate for pursuing physical fitness. Likewise, in the context of Jiu-Jitsu’s reputation, the “learn to defend myself” can also be interpreted as significant. Cultural precepts of “traditional” Eastern martial arts schools as daycares for children exist, and this is often not an unjustified image. By contrast, Jiu-Jitsu, with its meaningful ranks, resisted practice, and video evidence of its efficacy, is often seen as much more “real”, making it a safer choice for “informed” consumers wishing to learn how to defend themselves without the risk of brain damage associated with striking-oriented sports.\nThe next most common answer to the “why” question was far more BJJ-specific, and requires less interpretation. It was “to learn how to fight on the ground” or “to become a more well-rounded martial artist/fighter”. These answers, less generic than the previous ones, begin to lead us towards the most taste-related aspects of choosing a martial art. Most striking-based traditional martial arts (hereafter TMAs) include little to nothing in the way of groundwork, and so often people seek to shore up this deficiency by training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the most popular and revered style for this purpose. These people often have plans to train for a limited amount of time until they feel they have achieved a level of competency to feel “safe” outside of their existing comfort zone, and then return to their first love, whatever that might be.\nIt is very interesting then, that in my own experience these people often end up either disappearing after a few classes or staying (seemingly) forever. Reasons for this, naturally, can be explained at least partially in terms of taste. Training in martial arts is often popularly depicted as a quest for knowledge, and although this characterization might be somewhat simplistic, it is nonetheless the way many practitioners view their journey: as a sort of pilgrimage. For this reason, a crisis of taste can emerge for people trying out Jiu-Jitsu coming from other martial arts: any half decent pilgrim is willing to humble themselves in search of enlightenment, but these martial pilgrims are often possessed of a very particular sort of pride. Very often, people come to Jiu-Jitsu with high ranks in other martial arts, confident that their pre-existing abilities will allow them to progress quickly in this new endeavor. Furthermore, because these other arts sometimes have little or no fully resisted sparring component, these people are often unaccustomed to experiencing regular defeats without the buffer of an intensity or rules-based excuse. Ego, then, becomes an opposing force pitting two tastes against one another: one’s taste for challenge and learning against one’s distaste for vulnerability and ignorance. What is doubly compelling is that those latter distastes, the especially the one for vulnerability, are often the very same tastes which lead people to train in martial arts in the first place. To be a beginner again is to expose oneself to the things they were fleeing in the first place, and so it is my belief that it is only those with the strongest tastes for Jiu-Jitsu stick around, explaining why they tend to become so dedicated.\nThese are not the only interesting notes that can be had when examining data either. For example, only one person who I asked if they could see themselves still training in 10 years answered “no”, despite the fact that anyone with a modicum of experience can tell you that for them all to be still training in ten years is all but statistically impossible. The reasons for this cannot be determined empirically (or at least not within the scope of this writing), but when someone considers taste in other areas, we can get at least guess at plausible answers. If one were to ask anyone (especially a younger person) if they will still be listening to the same kind of music in 10 or even 20 years, then I would wager that a majority would answer “yes”, even if all rationality and precedent tell us otherwise. In the moment, things that suit our tastes become that which we love, and it is human to view that which we love as beyond criticism; people often become offended in an almost primal manner if they are presented with even the possibility of repudiating their tastes. People describe their progression to their current state of taste with words like “growth” and “maturity”, but it would appear that in marital arts, as in much else, we are hesitant to admit that our current state might one day be viewed in the same way. To further discuss the reasons for this goes beyond my understanding of cultural sciences, and most likely crosses over into the realm of behavioral science, but it is an interesting point to consider nonetheless.\nWhile all of this survey and interview-based info is helpful, is also somewhat limited: there are obvious concerns about lack of depth, and some considerations might require a degree of openness that it is difficult to ask of people. I turn now to my own journey into Jiu-Jitsu in hopes of providing deeper, if admittedly less broad insight. I myself come from the group that was exposed to Jiu-Jitsu coming from other martial arts, but I also came to it through a venue that I have yet to discuss and none of my training partners or survey takers mentioned: internet forums. On most discussion of martial arts online, channels are dominated by practitioners of styles with strong combat sports components, with a great deal of disdain directed towards TMAs due to the (often correct) notion that they are ineffective and driven more by a desire to part parents from their money than to fight or do anything \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo;. Coming from Taekwondo, perhaps the most maligned style, I initially took offense to this. But at the same time, I was curious as to why this “BJJ” was treated so much differently. After all, it too used colored belts and archaic Japanese-derivative clothing, and so seemed just as “traditional” as that which people seemed to despise. Even more, many of their arguments spoke to me: how could a method centered around training against full resistance not be effective, not to mention interesting and fun? When my Taekwondo instructor began dabbling in Jiu-Jitsu, it seemed almost preordained that I had to try it out as well, and I was soon addicted. For me, there was immediate, wonderful gratification in being able to train in a style with so much concrete feedback; in Jiu-Jitsu, I could suddenly try to defeat my partner with (nearly) 100% resistance, and provided a level of control with submission holds, neither of us would be injured. To try the same thing in a striking martial art with powerful barefoot kicks to the ribs and shin to head contact would result in emergency room trips and brain damage. There was the previously mentioned humbling, to be sure; there are liberating aspects of going from a black belt to being a white belt again, but to say that it does not require some swallowing of pride would be a lie of the highest order. Instead, I can only say that, for me, the level of blessed honesty in the training far outweighed the embarrassment I had of being clueless again. In terms of explaining this as taste, one could see it as a valuing of truth over comfort, and practice over theory: an aesthetic valuing of “realness”, if you will. I am aware that this explanation paints me in a rather flattering light, and that a more cynical interpretation might be that I merely became bored with Taekwondo or lost faith in my instructor. My only counter to that assertion would the simple claim that it is false: it was not a transformation of my previous love into hatred that drove me to the choice I have now made, but rather the development an even deeper, more intense affection for what I do now. I would also argue, purely from intuition and unscientific observation, that this is the way in which a mature taste develops. Nearly every young person trembles at the memory of what music they listened to in middle school, but rarely does a man or woman of 40 despise in abject embarrassment what they listened to 10 years, prior, even if they have no further interest in it.\nThis thread of tastes as personal values can be used for further fruitful introspection, in this case the value of fun and fulfillment over safety. Simply put, Jiu-Jitsu is not an incredibly safe activity. My opening description of a night of training is not every training session, but it is also not uncommon. I have had only one injury requiring surgery so far, but smaller damages are sustained very often. The fear of injury in training is omnipresent, and I am not alone in this: the most common answer in my surveys to the question “what is your least favorite thing about Jiu-Jitsu” was “injuries”. For me, the reason for this is perhaps somewhat ironic: the primary reason that I am afraid of being hurt doing Jiu-Jitsu is that it will prevent me from doing more Jiu-Jitsu. Others have slightly more noble concerns, especially those with occupations that require them to be able-bodied in order to provide for their families. And yet, we all continue to take the risk, and so the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that we rate what we get out of doing Jiu-Jitsu as worth the risks associated. It strikes me that in some ways, we are not unlike drug addicts in our cycle of injury and return: Jiu-Jitsu (the drug) is something that we know will hurt us if we do too much of it, and is returned to again and again in part because we enjoy it so much (the high), and in part because we fear the negative mental and physical consequences of going without it (addiction and withdrawal). Also, like drug dealers, academy veterans and owners do not warn prospective students “be careful: you might like this too much and want to train to the point that it’s bad for you.” Besides sounding ridiculous, such a warning would be a great way to sink a business. So it goes perennially left unsaid, something for white belts to learn the hard way after they are hooked. In all honesty, I am not sure what this metaphor says about BJJ practitioners. One might argue that BJJ artists and drug addicts are equals in that they value gratification and escape over independence and health, but I think this might be a simplistic conception. In the end, I think the difference may be based on love. I (and it would appear countless others) truly and with a clear head understand the risks associated with Jiu-Jitsu, and offer my body unto its altar willingly, to be broken or made strong as the journey sees fit. I know no drug addicts that can confidently say the same for their vice of choice.\nLastly, I would speak on what is perhaps the most personal aspect of taste: the way one’s taste objects become sources of community and second homes (third spaces), places of safety and security that one has likely not felt since outside the home of one’s childhood. This is a roundabout way of saying that, for me, Jiu-Jitsu has granted me not just a sport or an art, but a community. The people that I train with are my friends, and my interviews have indicated that I am not alone in this. People, within their taste-driven subcultures and gatherings, form some of the most tightly-woven communities seen in society. One feels far more connected to other individuals with shared interests than one does with those with a similar place of birth, and from that initial link of taste connection, friendships are formed. That such happens is a basic truth of human interaction, and no amount of dissembling by a Kant or Bourdieu will ever eliminate the primal, subconscious thought process along the lines of “I like this. You like this. I like you.” That this might be argued as illogical is irrelevant; it is, reason be damned. I am aware that this has nothing to do with Jiu-Jitsu specifically: it could have been any taste object by which I am bonded. My object of obsession happens to be the application of biomechanics towards maximally efficient means of unarmed grappling. Other people’s objects, as much as it might pain me to admit it, might be centered on the musical stylings of the Insane Clown Posse, and they are not inherently less valid for it. I might (and do) decry their taste object as bad, or even claim that their subculture promotes inferior values, but I cannot disregard the value they place in their communities. “Juggalos” know very well that their clown make-up and bizarre mode of dress will ostracize them from society at large, but they accept this willingly in order to ingratiate themselves towards their community, so much do they love the sense of belonging and kinship it brings them. In light of this, explanations of taste seem almost vulgar: whatever its origins, it is a key factor in the building of communities, and can be the genesis of some of humankind’s most meaningful connections.\nAnd so I am brought to the question: where does this leave me, on my melodramatic journey to the consequences, if not the ends of my own taste? I am unsure. I sit now, as a result of my own thoughts, scarcely separated from drug addicts and (far worse) ICP fans. In terms of exploring taste as phenomenon, I have done little beyond assert that taste has traceable origins and that taste as a phenomenon is invaluable to the human experience. These two statements, while significant, should hardly be controversial. In truth, my accomplishment is mostly limited to explaining a very niche taste, but it suddenly strikes me that such an endeavor might not be without value. To imagine a world in which clear, compelling examinations exist to explain every subculture is an interesting thing. At the very least, might not this potentially lessen taste-based animosities? A great deal of the people who read this might still think BJJ as a taste object strange, but it is my hope and belief that fewer now will find it mysterious or repulsive. To invoke an awful cliché, understanding someone’s taste can be something akin to walking a mile in their shoes, and if that mile were more accessible, (and took less time to walk) would it not be walked more often? It would seem to me that, while the elimination of taste divisions is neither possible nor desirable, a world of increased taste understanding would be a world of greater mutual benefit and welfare for all.\n","permalink":"https://whatgrabsme.org/jiujitsu/taste_and_bjj/","summary":"Why Do We Do What We Do?","title":"Taste and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu"}]