Saturday, February 19, 2005
SSBM Tourney...A Winner is Duy!
So yesterday (Friday February 18th) Mathsoc held a SSBM tournament. Entrants had the option of paying $5 for a tournament pool, where the top 4 placing paying players will get a share of the pot (40%, 30%, 20%, 10%).
Format was 1 on 1 5 stock matches, with items set on medium, swiss triple elimination style (you get matched against players with similar win-loss records, and you're elminated after 3 losses). All stages on random.
I decided to use Fox as my character, and Duy selected Link, Bao went with Samus, Alan Pikachu, and Jason used Bowser (Jason did not pay). We picked our characters before knowing the format, hence Duy went for Link for versatility. I picked Fox half for fun and half for style, I guess (Fox can quite flashy if need be).
The tournament was a very fun experience, although I was tied up the 2 days before the tournament and didn't get to practice with Fox as I'd like to have. I guess our circle does play SSBM quite a bit, for overall I think we were all above the average level of skill at the tournament, with me being in the top 5 and Duy winning the whole thing.
What's interesting (and I guess a bit unfortunate) was that I had to play Duy 4 times in the tournament, because by the later rounds only Duy and I consistently won enough matches in the paying pool to be matched together. We ended up splitting the games 2-2, but in the last match, when we both had 8-2 records (meaning winner will eliminate the loser), I got the shizzle owned out of me, ha ha. But it was all in good fun, and by then I knew that I was guaranteed to win money, so not too much harm done.
So if you've been paying attention to the details, if Duy won the triple elimination tournament and we split our 4 matches 2-2, that means...Duy didn't lose against anyone else at the tournament. So in that aspect I guess Duy and I were a bit disappointed, as we hoped (I kinda expected) there would be solid competition, not to take anything away from the people at the tournament. It would certainly be much more interesting that way.
Bao got emails from some of the more fun/good players at the tournament, so maybe we can expand our Smashy circle, which would be a good thing, he he.
A short breakdown of my matches while it's still fresh in my mind:
Match 1: vs Kirby in Onett - frankly speaking, Fox owns Kirby since Kirby is so uppable and Fox can tank quite a bit by crouch canceling. The Kirby wasn't too impressive, so I won the match rather easily.
Match 2: vs Fox in Onett - my first (and only) ditto match, these kind of matches are where it's quite evident who the better player is, I was able to beat my opponent using crouch canceling and more fast fall l-cancel aerials
Match 3: vs Peach in Infinite Glacier - statistically a difficult matchup, since Peach's downsmash is so devastating against Fox; but I lucked out on the stage and got some kills using items, the only match where items worked to be a big advantage for me
Match 4: vs Marth in Great Bay - not the best stage to fight a Marth, who is likely to be decent with a 3-0 record; I managed to defeat my opponent using sufficient cowardly tactics =P
Match 5: vs Duy in Battlefield - a fairly fair stage, I used too many dash attacks leading to Duy shield grabbing me and kept trying to trade off on my up Smash too late. Duy beat me with a couple lives left I think.
Match 6: vs Kirby in Peach's Castle - although my opponent was also 4-1, Fox just has too much of an advantage over Kirby; I kinda feel guilty during this match because I sneaked glances at Duy's match while I was still playing ('cause I was ahead by a couple lives) =P
might have mixed up the order for the following 3 matches:
Match 7: vs Marth (same player as before) in Mute City - was able to get the advantage using fast fall aerials and pestering with lasers...shining Marth off the island on his last life helped too =P
Match 8: vs Duy in Pokemon Stadium - had to go up against Duy again 'cause he was still undefeated and I was the only paying player with one loss. I was able to adapt and learn from the 1st match's mistakes, and focused more on aerial attacks that land behind Duy and anticipate his hookshot better, and I edged Duy in that match.
Match 9: vs Duy in Jungle Japes - after that match Duy and I still had the best records amongst the paying players, so we had to play another match. In this match I played about the same way as I did the previous match; Duy made a couple mistakes during the match, and I won the match with 2 lives left I believe.
the last two matches I were in this order:
Match 10: vs Doc in Mushroom Kingdom II - Doc was a pretty good opponent, and the stage was a bit too small for effective laser and cowering but not small enough for easy upping; plus I didn't really adapt fast enough to my opponent's style, thus I lost the match with my opponent having either 1 or 2 stock, I forgot.
Match 11: vs Duy in Yoshi's Island - pretty much just played poorly in this match, had one or two accident deaths, and Duy played well in avoiding my finishers. Got seriously owned, I think Duy only died once.
So in the end I was cheering Duy on in his final match, and was happy/proud that he won. I was thinking it'd be awesome if we finished 1st and 2nd in the tournament, but 1st and 4th is pretty good too, he he.
Scot, the tournament organizer, said that there'd likely be another tournament, perhaps even sometime later this term. So there'd be more chance to have fun and play against different people.
As Duy said, between the two of us we finally broke even on our "investment" in SSBM, so yeah, gaming paid off for once =P
Format was 1 on 1 5 stock matches, with items set on medium, swiss triple elimination style (you get matched against players with similar win-loss records, and you're elminated after 3 losses). All stages on random.
I decided to use Fox as my character, and Duy selected Link, Bao went with Samus, Alan Pikachu, and Jason used Bowser (Jason did not pay). We picked our characters before knowing the format, hence Duy went for Link for versatility. I picked Fox half for fun and half for style, I guess (Fox can quite flashy if need be).
The tournament was a very fun experience, although I was tied up the 2 days before the tournament and didn't get to practice with Fox as I'd like to have. I guess our circle does play SSBM quite a bit, for overall I think we were all above the average level of skill at the tournament, with me being in the top 5 and Duy winning the whole thing.
What's interesting (and I guess a bit unfortunate) was that I had to play Duy 4 times in the tournament, because by the later rounds only Duy and I consistently won enough matches in the paying pool to be matched together. We ended up splitting the games 2-2, but in the last match, when we both had 8-2 records (meaning winner will eliminate the loser), I got the shizzle owned out of me, ha ha. But it was all in good fun, and by then I knew that I was guaranteed to win money, so not too much harm done.
So if you've been paying attention to the details, if Duy won the triple elimination tournament and we split our 4 matches 2-2, that means...Duy didn't lose against anyone else at the tournament. So in that aspect I guess Duy and I were a bit disappointed, as we hoped (I kinda expected) there would be solid competition, not to take anything away from the people at the tournament. It would certainly be much more interesting that way.
Bao got emails from some of the more fun/good players at the tournament, so maybe we can expand our Smashy circle, which would be a good thing, he he.
A short breakdown of my matches while it's still fresh in my mind:
Match 1: vs Kirby in Onett - frankly speaking, Fox owns Kirby since Kirby is so uppable and Fox can tank quite a bit by crouch canceling. The Kirby wasn't too impressive, so I won the match rather easily.
Match 2: vs Fox in Onett - my first (and only) ditto match, these kind of matches are where it's quite evident who the better player is, I was able to beat my opponent using crouch canceling and more fast fall l-cancel aerials
Match 3: vs Peach in Infinite Glacier - statistically a difficult matchup, since Peach's downsmash is so devastating against Fox; but I lucked out on the stage and got some kills using items, the only match where items worked to be a big advantage for me
Match 4: vs Marth in Great Bay - not the best stage to fight a Marth, who is likely to be decent with a 3-0 record; I managed to defeat my opponent using sufficient cowardly tactics =P
Match 5: vs Duy in Battlefield - a fairly fair stage, I used too many dash attacks leading to Duy shield grabbing me and kept trying to trade off on my up Smash too late. Duy beat me with a couple lives left I think.
Match 6: vs Kirby in Peach's Castle - although my opponent was also 4-1, Fox just has too much of an advantage over Kirby; I kinda feel guilty during this match because I sneaked glances at Duy's match while I was still playing ('cause I was ahead by a couple lives) =P
might have mixed up the order for the following 3 matches:
Match 7: vs Marth (same player as before) in Mute City - was able to get the advantage using fast fall aerials and pestering with lasers...shining Marth off the island on his last life helped too =P
Match 8: vs Duy in Pokemon Stadium - had to go up against Duy again 'cause he was still undefeated and I was the only paying player with one loss. I was able to adapt and learn from the 1st match's mistakes, and focused more on aerial attacks that land behind Duy and anticipate his hookshot better, and I edged Duy in that match.
Match 9: vs Duy in Jungle Japes - after that match Duy and I still had the best records amongst the paying players, so we had to play another match. In this match I played about the same way as I did the previous match; Duy made a couple mistakes during the match, and I won the match with 2 lives left I believe.
the last two matches I were in this order:
Match 10: vs Doc in Mushroom Kingdom II - Doc was a pretty good opponent, and the stage was a bit too small for effective laser and cowering but not small enough for easy upping; plus I didn't really adapt fast enough to my opponent's style, thus I lost the match with my opponent having either 1 or 2 stock, I forgot.
Match 11: vs Duy in Yoshi's Island - pretty much just played poorly in this match, had one or two accident deaths, and Duy played well in avoiding my finishers. Got seriously owned, I think Duy only died once.
So in the end I was cheering Duy on in his final match, and was happy/proud that he won. I was thinking it'd be awesome if we finished 1st and 2nd in the tournament, but 1st and 4th is pretty good too, he he.
Scot, the tournament organizer, said that there'd likely be another tournament, perhaps even sometime later this term. So there'd be more chance to have fun and play against different people.
As Duy said, between the two of us we finally broke even on our "investment" in SSBM, so yeah, gaming paid off for once =P
