The Dark Tournament + Luigi’s Mansion
This 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.
DARK 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.
As 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.
For 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.
For 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.
The 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.
THINGS TO WORK ON
No drift/drift back double fair facing the right.
Edgeguarding Fox in tournament (apparently completely different?)
Teching Fox upsmash into grab
Lugi’s Mansion
Luigi’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.
For 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.
As 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.
My 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.
For 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.
For 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.
For 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.
THINGS 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.