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[lvl99 Pixel]

its not really robotic when hes arguably the best at adaptation and noticing habits.
There are also subtle reaction based followups that he will do.

I agree he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve like mango, but calling it robotic seems a bit reductive to someone who is evidently the best in the world at the game right now.

Who was it that said melee is mostly mental?

 

[Takyon]

I'm glad Chudat got rekt this tournament.
He's actually an incredibly lazy player when it comes to utilizing Ice Climber's unique tech. Watching Dizzkidboogie's stream really opened my eyes to this.

 

[Codeblue]

I don't know what tech you're talking about, but Chu's heavy emphasis on neutral is why he can take games off the best player on Earth in a match up that's usually considered unwinnable, which is something no one else has been able to do ever.

Plus he placed 20 spots above Dizz this tournament.

 

[peter0611]

Armada's post-Royal Flush interview was a little sad. You can tell it still bugs him that he can never be a fan favorite or get significant from the crowd. No one is dumb enough to doubt he is the best and most consistent player. But there's no crazy excitement, love, or"fanaticism" behind it. It's just a statement of fact.

My only suggestion is... "Fuck them all", lol. I'm sure he has a fanbase who cares and roots for him. Just be happy and focus on that instead of what you can't change.

 

[chaosblade]

Armada's post-Royal Flush interview was a little sad. You can tell it still bugs him that he can never be a fan favorite or get significant from the crowd. No one is dumb enough to doubt he is the best and most consistent player. But there's no crazy excitement, love, or"fanaticism" behind it. It's just a statement of fact.

My only suggestion is... "Fuck them all", lol. I'm sure he has a fanbase who cares and roots for him. Just be happy and focus on that instead of what you can't change.

He seems like a genuinely great guy and I doubt many people outside of the relatively casual stream monsters legitimately dislike him, but it's just not interesting when he wins because he wins so much. There just isn't that much excitement to be had when it's such a regular occurrence. For that same reason it's exciting when he even loses a set (or even when he's down and hasn't lost), someone beating Armada is a big deal.

 

[emb]

It's exciting when he's down, but against a lot of people I actually do prefer to see Armada win. Armada's combos are also usually cooler than stuff I see Mango and others doing. I'm surprised there aren't more fans for him, but the minority tends to get drowned out anyway.

 

[GamerJM]

I don't know what tech you're talking about, but Chu's heavy emphasis on neutral is why he can take games off the best player on Earth in a match up that's usually considered unwinnable, which is something no one else has been able to do ever.

Plus he placed 20 spots above Dizz this tournament.

Chu's neutral is incredible, but he doesn't really do any cool handoff combos or much Icies specific tech. Personally I'm a bigger fan of Chu than, say, Dizzkid/Fly since I find Chu's approach to Melee a lot more interesting than the cool Icies stuff, but I understand how someone could arrive at Takyon's opinion, especially if they're an Icies main or they think the way that Chu plays the game looks kind of boring.

 

[Anth0ny]

lol, the new guy at giant bomb is a melee fan. he actually talked about it on the bombcast this week, and explained how he watched the tournament last weekend and how it was significant that mango beat armada. was fun to listen to.

 

[Pappasman]

lol, the new guy at giant bomb is a melee fan. he actually talked about it on the bombcast this week, and explained how he watched the tournament last weekend and how it was significant that mango beat armada. was fun to listen to.

I haven't listened to the bombcast in a while so this is a good excuse to check out the latest epsiode. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Codeblue]

Melee talk starts at 1:07:40 for anyone interested.

 

[Takyon]

I don't know what tech you're talking about, but Chu's heavy emphasis on neutral is why he can take games off the best player on Earth in a match up that's usually considered unwinnable, which is something no one else has been able to do ever.

Plus he placed 20 spots above Dizz this tournament.

Chu's neutral is incredible, but he doesn't really do any cool handoff combos or much Icies specific tech. Personally I'm a bigger fan of Chu than, say, Dizzkid/Fly since I find Chu's approach to Melee a lot more interesting than the cool Icies stuff, but I understand how someone could arrive at Takyon's opinion, especially if they're an Icies main or they think the way that Chu plays the game looks kind of boring.

Chudat's neutral game is god-tier. But he really doesn't exploit icies to their fullest. A great example is desynched iceblocks. If you can make Nana jump and iceblock just over the Pokemon Stadium platform, puff can't reach Popo at all and she also can't stall the ledge. That tech could have very easily won Chudat Dreamhack.

Also, his set with Shroomed was kinda embarrassing. He kept going for the Down-Air regrab, even though Shroomed has consistently proven he wouldn't fall for it. At any point Chudat could have just desynch forward-smashed and caught Shroomed with bad DI.

None of this would really interfere with his style, just paper over the cracks where his approach evidently needs work.

 

[Anth0ny]

wow was digging through old pictures and came across these:

apex 2012! taken with old crappy blackberry camera

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

melee history is always cool. As grassroots as it gets.

 

[emb]

wow was digging through old pictures and came across these:



apex 2012! taken with old crappy blackberry camera

Good times! Only Apex I ended up making it out to. Of the bunch, probably the worst choice (other than 2016), especially as a PPMD fan. But no way I could have known until after I was there. It's hard to tell from all these pics, but the crowd out there was crazy for the space that was available. And friendly setups were seriously hard to come by.

I was out there with my parents' cheap digital camera. Had terrible shutter speed so most of my pics ended up blurred out. Didn't take many pictures of recognizable players either, but I found a couple I can throw in the mix:

Isai playing doubles

Shroomed and Armada about to play. Hax and Jman beside them. And I think Hbox strolling in the background.

Crowd at the end of Hax vs Sfat. This was the first time I had ever heard of Sfat.

 

[Anth0ny]

haha holy shit I was right behind isai when he was playing that doubles set. probably just to the left of that picture above.

 

[emb]

haha holy shit I was right behind isai when he was playing that doubles set. probably just to the left of that picture above.

Small world. I definitely probably saw you that weekend, but we'll never know, lol.

I know I watched that set, but I don't really remember what happened. I think Isai's team won a pretty close 2-0? But really, I can't even remember who won for sure. The other team, Stingers and Jim, are from NC, and I was definitely hoping they'd win.

 

[Jigolo]

gods playing well this weekend

 

[Lucumo]

Damn, Amsa.

 

[LucidMomentum]

Yo, speaking of making memories any of you down to hang at EVO?

 

[chaosblade]

Shroomed is looking amazing right now against Armada. Up 2-1 right now, hope he doesn't choke.

Armada broke out the Fox. Shroomed not ready for it.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

fox happened because of course it did

 

[Khaos Kontrol]

Shroomed ;__;

 

[Codeblue]

This ain't a charity Mang0, you've got a family to feed.

 

[Sami+]

Sometimes winning for yourself is more important than winning with cheese, I feel.

 

[peter0611]

Wobbles commentary is on point right now, lol.

 

[Codeblue]

I really enjoyed that. It's just a super tense mental game. Plus, a five game set is gonna be a lot more taxing on Armada than it is on HBox, so I understand the rationale, even if HBox was winning when they were actually fighting.

 

[emb]

So much entertaining Melee this weekend.

 

[chaosblade]

Shroomed has been on fire recently. Pretty great after he had a relatively weak year or so. Looking solidly top 10 again.

 

[Codeblue]

This is probably in the running for biggest losers run of all time?

 

[Anteo]

This game 3 is insane

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

I dont enjoy watching Hbox play too much, but he gives a good speech
meanwhile, somwhere else

 

[Neol]

That rest in the end was crazy fast.

Crazy tournament overall. Really was hoping the leffen anime arc was gonna be real but can't say I'm that disappointed by his result.

 

[Anteo]

@TSM_Leffen
Grats to Hbox, next time I'll be better prepared! Really wish you wouldn't plank when all your doing is wasting time and gaining % but ya.

To be fair it kind of worked. Leffen didnt show he could deal with it properly to make hbox not do it again.

Also that rest to end the set. wow.

 

[Codeblue]

The planking was definitely working. He lost the games where he didn't do it. There's something to be said for wearing a Fox player out with like, four inputs every couple of seconds, plus at a certain point, the percent HBox is taking just puts him out of up throw up air percent.

That said, I don't think this'll work again. Armada'll have an answer next time.

 

[Pappasman]

The tempo mix up planking strat really worked for Hbox here, but I wonder why the players don't try to challenge puff off stage when she loses the i-frames. Its a tight window but you've got to do something.

 

[theprodigy]

CEO 2017 vs 2016 drops:

SFV: -41.7%
Smash Wii U: -39.82%
Melee: -62.54%
Killer Instinct: -40.87%
Marvel: -25.90%
Guilty Gear: -21.02%
Pokken: -52.21%
Tekken: -22.66%

yikes Melee dropped extra hard

 

[Lucumo]

To be fair, there are a lot of tournaments going on. So something like CEO doesn't really matter for Melee.

 

[emb]

Makes sense for both Smash games at CEO to drop this year; if I was going to CEO, as a Smasher, I'd absolutely prefer Dreamland (except for the Easter stuff).

Surprised to see Melee drop that much harder. 4 has generally been more popular at CEO anyway though.

 

[Sami+]

As someone who was there, CEO for Melee kind of sucked last year and Smash 4 wasn't really that great either. TO's had to make space for Pokken in the Smash room, so Smash 4 was overwhelmingly crowded, sweaty, and it was really hard to find a friendlies setup. Melee was a little bit better but not much. Pokken area was almost completely empty except for when the actual bracket was happening.

Plus for Melee a lot of the top players didn't show up for personal reasons so the hype kind of died. I dunno, it was my first experience traveling to a tournament but it could have been better - we didn't even get to hang out in the pool which had been a tradition apparently because some dumbass peed in it.

 

[emb]

As someone who was there, CEO for Melee kind of sucked last year and Smash 4 wasn't really that great either. TO's had to make space for Pokken in the Smash room, so Smash 4 was overwhelmingly crowded, sweaty, and it was really hard to find a friendlies setup. Melee was a little bit better but not much. Pokken area was almost completely empty except for when the actual bracket was happening.

Plus for Melee a lot of the top players didn't show up for personal reasons so the hype kind of died. I dunno, it was my first experience traveling to a tournament but it could have been better - we didn't even get to hang out in the pool which had been a tradition apparently because some dumbass peed in it.

Yeah, last year it was rough. Melee finals started very late, to the point that my group ended up need to back to our hotel and watch from there. Every room involved seemed crowded like crazy all the time. Friendlies were always hard to find, and they started cleaning up setups early Sunday, making the issue even worse. It was overall kind of a bad experience. Wasn't an awful event, but there were certainly issues.

 

[Anth0ny]

CEO 2017 vs 2016 drops:

SFV: -41.7%
Smash Wii U: -39.82%
Melee: -62.54%
Killer Instinct: -40.87%
Marvel: -25.90%
Guilty Gear: -21.02%
Pokken: -52.21%
Tekken: -22.66%

yikes Melee dropped extra hard

damn rip fighting games


even sfv is down

 

[LucidMomentum]

Holy Cow Smash & Splash. Good stuff all around, some amazing sets.

Bigger Balc seems to have gotten to HBox a bit, first his PM tweet then his victory speech the weekend after. Nintendon't help us, why does everyone hope that they will some day?

damn rip fighting games

even sfv is down

I think a big part of it is that there are more events year round now for every game.

Back when you had the 3-4 super majors a year people would make pilgrimages to it, but when you have regionals, majors, and your local weeklies there's less of a "need" to travel to these huge events to get to play people as much.

With that being said, I'm still on track to make my goal of hitting up an out of town tournament once a month. Granted I've been cheating a bit by heading 1-2 hours out of town to compete but it's a different scene enough to count.

SoCal in June, EVO in July, Cen Cal in August.

Also kind of got low key sponsored / asked to help TO a regional. Feels good. Taking a month hiatus from TO'ing my local biweeklies to remind the jerks in town that things weren't always this good and to prep myself for EVO.

Feels a bit selfish but eh, I've been doing this nonstop for a year and a half so a month to step back doesn't feel all that selfish. Using it as a 50 / 50 to either get more people involved with running it while I'm away, or to come back and tell people they shouldn't complain when it's just one or two people doing it all.

 

[Codeblue]

He did it. Hbox finally popped off so hard that it warranted a GAF thread.

 

[Anth0ny]

oh it's a melee thread on gaming side

lets read some of these posts...

 

[GamerJM]

Tbf HBox's speech was kinda cringe and I dunno how much business sense it would actually make for Nintendo to support the scene (not saying it wouldn't, just that I've thought a lot about it and have come to the conclusion that I don't really know). That being said a lot of the posts there are pretty silly. I don't really think this is just a GAF thing; a lot of general gaming communities somehow aren't really able to grasp why people don't move on from Melee for some reason. I have no idea why it's such a foreign concept.

 

[Anth0ny]

Tbf HBox's speech was kinda cringe and I dunno how much business sense it would actually make for Nintendo to support the scene (not saying it wouldn't, just that I've thought a lot about it and have come to the conclusion that I don't really know). That being said a lot of the posts there are pretty silly. I don't really think this is just a GAF thing; a lot of general gaming communities somehow aren't really able to grasp why people don't move on from Melee for some reason. I have no idea why it's such a foreign concept.

Melee gets hit by like 5 different layers of shit at once:

1. Playing a VIDEO GAME competitively?

2. Playing SMASH BROS competitively? But it's a party game! Why don't you play with items on? Why only FD?

3. Playing MELEE still? But that game is old! Play the new game! Cause it's new and therefore better!

4. Why does such a NICHE audience need any attention? (that gets millions of stream viewers and youtube views every year and continues to grow bigger and bigger 15 years after launch)

5. Melee is so STAGNANT, it's the same players and characters winning all the tournaments! So boring! (almost like the better player wins because there are no bullshit mechanics in the game. almost like the top players in the game become popular BECAUSE they are so consistently good, as you can see by their presence on twitter/youtube/twitch. almost like tons of other sports with consistent performance from top players/teams... not to mention all metrics continue to grow for the game when it comes to popularity.)

the majority of those posts stop at step 1 or 2 with shitty drive by LOL VIDEO GAMES FOR A LIVING? or LOL SMASH BROS PLAYERS STINK posts. they don't give a fuck about the reality of the melee scene or why it's so popular still.

 

[chaosblade]

Tbf HBox's speech was kinda cringe and I dunno how much business sense it would actually make for Nintendo to support the scene (not saying it wouldn't, just that I've thought a lot about it and have come to the conclusion that I don't really know). That being said a lot of the posts there are pretty silly. I don't really think this is just a GAF thing; a lot of general gaming communities somehow aren't really able to grasp why people don't move on from Melee for some reason. I have no idea why it's such a foreign concept.

It probably comes down to most people not caring or understanding the differences between games apart from "new game = more content = better." Basically seeing Smash is Smash, they all play the same, except Brawl had the dumb tripping thing they went back on.

 

[GamerJM]

Melee gets hit by like 5 different layers of shit at once:

1. Playing a VIDEO GAME competitively?

2. Playing SMASH BROS competitively? But it's a party game! Why don't you play with items on? Why only FD?

3. Playing MELEE still? But that game is old! Play the new game! Cause it's new and therefore better!

4. Why does such a NICHE audience need any attention? (that gets millions of stream viewers and youtube views every year and continues to grow bigger and bigger 15 years after launch)

5. Melee is so STAGNANT, it's the same players and characters winning all the tournaments! So boring! (almost like the better player wins because there are no bullshit mechanics in the game. almost like the top players in the game become popular BECAUSE they are so consistently good, as you can see by their presence on twitter/youtube/twitch. almost like tons of other sports with consistent performance from top players/teams... not to mention all metrics continue to grow for the game when it comes to popularity.)

the majority of those posts stop at step 1 or 2 with shitty drive by LOL VIDEO GAMES FOR A LIVING? or LOL SMASH BROS PLAYERS STINK posts. they don't give a fuck about the reality of the melee scene or why it's so popular still.

1. Yeah but this is a video game forum.

2. I don't get why this is weird for people. Before I was even involved with the Melee scene at all I knew people who didn't like to play Smash with items on. I've seen people who say that this goes against the way Sakurai designed the way the game was meant to be played, but then A) He wouldn't have given us the option to play it that way and B) he wouldn't have included a mode in the game called "tournament mode" (even though no tournaments use that mode, the fact that it's in there at all is pretty clear evidence that the game was meant to be played competitively to some degree).

3. I get that it's because generally newer multiplayer games with more "stuff," are generally perceived as being better than their predecessors, but I don't get how this still gets spouted when there's always dozens of people in topics explaining why this isn't the case + it takes like five minutes of google to find out why people prefer Melee.

4 and 5 I don't have as much of a problem with even though I don't agree with them at all. 4 actually does have a bit of truth to it; Melee is pretty big but it might be reaching a point of stagnation (Genesis 4 had a slight drop in numbers from 3), and it doesn't compare to something like League, Dota, or CSGO at all. Most mid-level tournaments are run at a loss. I don't really think niche is a good word for it but I don't really have much faith in a non-F2P version of Melee to grow to the level of the other juggernaut eSports, and I can see why Nintendo might not want to invest in it. 5 is pretty clearly wrong but most people who say it have at least watched a few EVO top 8s and don't really understand what they're watching because the ins and outs of the game are so complex that they just see Fox chasing down Puff with lasers once a year and assume that the game never changes, even though every match is wildly different from every other match that has proceeded it and the top players are constantly coming up with ways to innovate in both their neutral and their punish game. It's mostly just people who make drive-by posts that basically say what you said in point 3 because it's so low-effort that I don't get how it's remained something that people consistently post.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

my friend got to money match amsa @ battle of bc
loud music warning

I couldnt tell you a thing about this matchup

 

[Pappasman]

Never give the players the mic. Evo has this rule and it's very important. I knew that shit was going to get a gaming side thread as soon as I saw it. Gross.

I thought about making a thread about the 20XX mod and how much time and effort went into creating such a robust hack, but it would be pointless here.