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.
As 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.
In 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.
As 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.
PERSONAL
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.
For 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.
As 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.
As 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.
My 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.
My 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.
After 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.
My 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.
My 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->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.
Next 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’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.
The 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->soft hair->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.
My 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.