Coods

The Smash Bros. Thread + A Primer

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First off, if you've never encountered high-level Smash before, here's a

, and a
, just to pique your interest.

 

For those who happened to see some Smash during the most recent EVO or anywhere else and wondered what was going on, this will hopefully be everything you need to know.

 

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Smash Bros. is different from most competitive games in that, when a new installment comes out, the competitive scene does not migrate over to the new game. This is because the Smash games are not made with the competitive scene as the first priority, and while each game is still fundamentally Smash, the mechanics vary enough to the point where they are drastically different competitive experiences. Right now the 2 games with huge competitive followings are Smash Bros. Melee and Smash 4.

 

What does stay the same is the following: Competitive Smash is usually played in two forms, doubles and singles, with singles being the primary event. Games are played usually in a best of 3 or best of 5. In Melee's case, games are 4 stocks each. For Sm4sh, it is 2 stocks each. Both games have considerably dynamic tier lists. At least the top 12 characters of Melee can be seen in some level of tournament play. There is even more variety in Smash 4. Some players choose to master only one character, but recently many players are dual-maining, switching where one character can cover the weaker matchups of the other character.

 

Tournaments are year round, and it may be a little hard to follow whats coming up. The subreddit is a good place for this, and also has a helpful list of streams on the sidebar.

 

Before 2013, Melee had a small but faithful scene. It had no major supporter like MLG or EVO, and all tournaments were run by members of the community. In 2015, many players are sponsored in some way, and the scene has support from major tournaments as well as limited support from Nintendo. Right now the biggest news is HTC as well as Dreamhack hosting tournaments, so there is no better time to start following the scene.

 

would be a great place to start watching. The next upcoming big tournament is Paragon LA in two weeks. Catch it on twitch!

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post under construction...

 

There are plenty of notable players to follow, these are a few choice ones.

 
NOTE: Some of what I am about to say sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I swear it's all true.
 
THE TOP 6: From 2010 to 2013 there are 5 players, literally referred to as the Gods of Melee, who were levels above everyone else and could only be beaten by another god. Along comes 2014, and a player from Sweden named Leffen (also literally referred to as the God Slayer) becomes the first player to beat all 5 of the gods in tournament, solidifying his position as a top player and turning the "top 5" into a "top 6".
 
[A]lliance Armada: Currently considered the best player in the world after winning EVO 2015, Armada is a Fox player from Sweden. Before this year he was known as the best Peach player of all time, but has since switched to Fox without losing a beat in tournaments.
 
TSM Leffen: Considered the villain of the Smash community, Leffen is known for his incredible Fox as well as his ambitious trash-talk. He's the only player to have beaten all the gods in tournament, and currently is considered the 2nd best player behind Armada. Incidentally, both are from Sweden and play each other frequently.
 
C9 Mang0: Mango is the overwhelming fan favorite of the top 6, which is good or bad depending on whether you like him or not. Although he is of course as skilled as the rest of the top 6, Mango is known for his brash, unpredictable and sporadic Fox/Falco playstyle and personality. He oscillates between playing extremely well and laughably bad, and is currently considered near the bottom of the top 6, but still has the most loyal and largest fanbase of any one player.
 
Liquid Hungrybox: Mango's polar opposite, Hungrybox is the best Jigglypuff player in the world. While he is certainly as good as the rest of the top 6, he is unpopular for his overly-safe and campy playstyle.
 
EG PPMD: A Falco and Marth player, PPMD recently has had personal issues prevent him from traveling to major tournaments. For 2015 he only showed up to the supermajors, but still places very high despite not playing in tournaments for months at a time.
 
COG MVG Mew2King: Currently at the bottom of the top 6, Mew2King is known for his highly precise Marth and Sheik, and is considered the king of Final Destination due to his unparalleled dominance with Marth on FD. Hand injuries, sponsorship troubles and mentality issues have prevented Mew2King from playing at his potential, but everyone is fully aware of what Mew2King can do when he's on.
 
 
TSM ZeRo: Right now, ZeRo is shockingly dominant in Smash 4. While he has been a top Melee player, he is more famous for being one of the best Brawl players. Since his rise to the top he has not lost a single tournament, and his undoubtedly the best player in Smash 4 right now.

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This is a nice thread, thanks Coods :).

 

I watched this video yesterday about competitive Smash as a spectator sport and would recommend it:

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This is a cool thread, thanks for starting it. Those of you who are interested in a Melee-oriented podcast show should check out Melee it on Me. The podcast usually recaps a recent big tournament and does predictions/speculation for upcoming tournaments as well.

 

Although Mew2King is considered at the bottom of the 6 Gods, he is the only God who is competitive in Brawl and Smash 4, recently winning the Brawl tournament at Super Smash Con. All other Gods are only top-level in Melee. At one point, ZeRo suggested he would consider playing Melee more seriously after winning EVO, but realised it is better to focus on the game that he already excels in. Some other Smash 4 players to watch out for that have the highest likelihood of toppling ZeRo's incredible streak are Nairo (recently partnered with Team Liquid) and ESAM, a highly technical Pikachu player who also has a strong background in Melee and Brawl.

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The melee tourney held at PAX featured a great comeback story for mew2king, who probably plays the best he has this entire year in this set. 

 

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So an upcoming major tournament, The Big House 5, is doing a "compendium" to get crowd-funded bonuses to multiple aspects of the tournament, such as securing additional rooms in the venue and increasing the prize pot. It's on a much smaller scale than the Dota 2 compendium of course, but it's interesting to see if the organisers will consider this a success and whether other tournaments will try to adopt this. It's important to note that despite being such a large and highly-regarded tournament, TBH5 is still kind of a grassroots tournament that is run by community members rather than a large organisation, like we have seen happening recently, with PAX, Twitch, Red Bull, HTC and MLG (for the 3rd or 4th time, I lost track) stepping up support for the game. Therefore I believe that TBH5 is a better fit for community funding, and the tournament organisers are trusted members of the community. I imagine a large company with lots of money asking the community for additional funding would leave somewhat of a bad impression on people.

 

Anyway, here's a link to the compendium: https://smash.gg/tournament/the-big-house-5/compendium

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