#competitive smash

[tgoldwalker]

I fucking love reading the smash wiki so much.

Here’s our shitty grandpa, he sucks at everything

[flightyquinn]

competitive smash bros reminds me a lot of historical warfare, with two highly trained generals, utterly unable to handle anything that isn't two clearly visible armies of known strength fighting on an open field

[an-angel-0f-death]

I have come to the conclusion that the most entertaining passtime one could perform is commentating Alan Becker's The Showdown like it's a competitive Smash match

[kaiobeast]

Nairo finally released a statement today regarding the whole situation of what happened between him and CaptainZack. I know people on tumblr straight up Do Not Give A Fuck about competitive Smash, but to me, this is a big deal because I’ve known and grown up with a lot of the people in this community for years. 

Gonna put a read more because it’s a lot.

For context:

-In July, the Smash community basically imploded as some of the highest ranking professional smashers were being accused of sexual misconduct and abuse, including the two biggest names ZeRo and Nairo. Not gonna go into ZeRo’s case because he eventually admitted to everything.

-In Nairo’s case, he was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with CaptainZack, who was almost 16, but still a minor when the alledged misconduct occurred. He was encouraged by Samsora, a player who was also a friend of Nairo, to come forward and “tell the truth about what happened”. Nairo apologized, and basically dropped off the face of the earth, and nobody’s heard anything from him since the day of the accusation and deleting all of his social media, leading to a LOT of division over whether he was guilty of being labelled a predator. 

-Within a day of the accusation, Nairo gets banned from the FGC/VGBC and Twitch. His sponsor company NRG has also dropped him, and all the videos Nintendo had featuring him were deleted. Essentially, he has his entire reputation and livelihood destroyed in a single day. 

-A month later, on September 14th, Tamim (a close friend of CaptainZack), released a statement saying that Zack was lying about what happened between him and Nairo, and that Zack molested Nario while he was asleep and had continued to touch him even when he woke up and tried to push Zack off and told him no. Zack then used that encounter to blackmail and extort Nairo into giving him money with the understanding that if he didn’t, Zack would out Nairo for having sex with a minor. Nairo was compliant because Zack had already done this to another player and gotten them permanently banned from the scene for doing the exact same thing (read: Ally). 

-Screen shots from Zack’s discord are posted to r/smashbros, showing further evidence that Zack came onto Nairo, and that Nairo did not consent. It also shows the extortion and the money the Nairo wired to Zack upon his request.

-Zack did not deny any of this and in fact has confirmed that what Tamim posted was true.

-October 29th, four months since the accusation, Nairo releases a statement of his side of the story, essentially corroborating Tamim’s statement of what happened. (I highly encourage you to read the comments as they provide even more context and depth to the situation.)

-Nairo has retained a lawyer and there is a 30 page document of evidence that he and his lawyer have compiled to show in court. There are prominent community heads who have read the entire document (Void+Cosmos), and are now saying that they believe Nairo’s side of the story. MKLeo, the current highest ranking PGR player, has also said that he supports Nairo.

What happened to Nairo was straight fucked up, and he did NOT deserve anything that happened to him. His life has been completely fucking ruined by this, and I honestly feel for the guy. It’s starting to look like Zack and Samsora collaborated together to bring down Nairo, since Nairo was such a huge crowd draw and made a lot of money streaming on Twitch, with Samsora tired of being in Nairo’s shadow. 

Now, this is NOT the first time that Zack has exhibited this kind of manipulative, sociopathic behavior. He did this exact same thing to Ally (which is it’s own clusterfuck of fuckery that I won’t get into) a year before his encounter with Nairo, and got Ally permabanned for matchfixing when CaptainZack blackmailed him to throw matches because he was jealous at Ally’s success and angry that Ally did not want to be in a relationship with him. Now, I am not excusing or siding with Ally, since that situation was entirely different, and Ally was in the wrong in the first place for even entertaining that relationship, but the pattern of behavior is established. Nairo knew that Zack would absolutely follow through on his threats because he’d done it before, so he complied and kept his mouth shut.

Zack has also tried to come onto Dabuz, who shot him down immediately.

CaptainZack claims that he does not want to return to the community, yet he still goes to locals under the name Secretary which is just plain tasteless IMO.

[offbeatcat]

Well, R.I.P the competitive smash scene, guess hero is the new bayonetta.

[butterflykvss]

My competitive Smash experience in a nutshell.

[artfulhobbes]

Got a couple photos from the big video game event that I went to last week!

I was able to get a photo with 2ManyCooks, the current best Smash Ultimate player in Alberta right now. And by get a photo with I mean he requested a photo with me which honestly meant a lot to me cause I really look up to him as a player, person, and a friend. This dude is crazy talented!

And I’m usually not lucky enough to get a professional photo taken of me at events but I was this time! Got a photo with a fellow Lethbridge goon. Really got my eyes on the prize in this photo. Definitely making this my header on Tumblr next!

I was killing it in my white denim + red combo that weekend. And I placed really well to boot!

[boner-taunt]

More comp smash bros thoughts

In the same vein as my last post on the subject, I think optimal play is also overemphasized in the competitive scene at the expense of matchup knowledge and good fundamentals. I’ve seen a lot of “good” players in my area who rely so much on safe/hard-to-punish pressure, moves that lead to guaranteed follow-ups, and sticking only to what you’re “supposed to do” in a matchup that the behaviors, while objectively good, themselves become predictable. You might be a really clean player but if you can’t improvise on the fly and be willing to settle for some non-optimal play if your opponent starts adjusting you’re going to get embarrassed by the first player who comes along that can read your habits and tendencies faster than you can theirs. Basically, don’t worry if your play isn’t as clean as it should be, you gain far more from focusing practice on your follow-ups, game fundamentals (like neutral and ledge guarding), and your matchup knowledge.