That being said, what a fun tournament! Queen City Melee VIII was my second trip through Burlington to face off against the Vermont crew and the Montreal invaders was terrific. Kage the Warrior and his Ganondorf came through to take our money in both single and doubles, but he was awesome to meet and was great at providing some hype while he was watching the streamed matches.
From a results standpoint, I was fairly content. Out of field of 36 singles entrants, I came away with a 7th-place finish, ultimately falling to Diego's Falco in a close, yet convincing, 2-0 set.
My road to that point, however, was pretty successful. I had committed to play Fox exclusively, with the exception of pulling out my Marth for it's tournament debut if the situation presented itself.
I earned a bye in winners, and took down Lucrid's Falco and Marth in back-to-back 4-stock defeats, 2-0, in my first matchup in Round 2 winners. Chester, the 5th-ranked player on the Montreal Melee Power Rankings and No. 2 seed in bracket, quickly sent me to loser's in a pair of 2-stocks on Dreamland.
Now, this is a situation I've been in plenty of times, having competed in tournaments for about a year now. I've proven to be good enough to advance a round of two on the winner's side of most locals before giving way to a more established player. In turn, I'm no stranger to fighting my way through the often-perilous world of the loser's bracket.
Meep was my first opponent, someone I hadn't yet faced before. His skill level was hard to judge going in, given that I had watched him sent to loser's earlier in the day by Kage. In turn, I was not about to underestimate him.
I swiftly beat his Marth on Battlefield with two stocks remaining before he pulled out his Luigi — the character I had seen him take two stocks from Kage's Ganondorf on stream — for the second game. My Fox is made for taking out mid/low-tier characters, and I 3-stocked him to emerge victorious on Dreamland.
Next was ; (pronounced "semicolon"), who I had played in friendlies earlier, routinely two- and three-stocking with all of my characters. Audibly making it known that he had little confidence entering the set, I made fairly quick work of him to advance.
At this point, I'm in Round 5 of the loser's bracket, meaning a loss now would tie me for 9th on the day, and I was pitted against Slots, considered one of the top Vermont Fox players, alongside players such as BStuk.
I'll detail the stage striking because I feel like stage striking in the ditto can be fairly interesting given that it is all based on personal preference. For me, I prefer to use as much space as possible to help establish my footing, as more pressure-oriented players can be slowed when not able to effectively play straight rushdown.
Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled when Slots began by striking Dreamland, my favorite stage. I struck both Yoshi's Story and Fountain of Dreams, and I just assumed we would go to Battlefield. While top players such as Leffen and Armada enjoy the punish-heavy nature of Fox dittos on Final Destination, I was under the impression that the less-experienced Slots would opt for the standard neutral stage in Battlefield.
I was wrong.
I consider myself pretty strong in Fox dittos, especially in the punish game (although my chain-grabs are lacking), so my confidence was fairly high. Slots was an immensely worthy competitor, baiting out some poorly-spaced n-air and d-air approaches on my point. Our first game went down to the wire, with me clutching it out with some solid ledge-hop b-air edgeguarding that ended with a charged up-smash as he Fire-Foxed onto the stage.
Without hesitation, Slots chose to return to FD for the second game, and I almost considered going Marth because that close game had left my confidence a bit shaken. I was glad I stuck it out with Fox, opening a wide 3-to-1 stock advantage, using some solid punished off of grabs along the way. A 2-stock win gave me the 2-0 nod as I pushed into the top 8.
Loser's quarters would be the end of my journey, as I was matched up against Diego, a very good Montreal Falco player who had 2-1'd my Sheik at QCM6 a couple of months prior. I was determined to stay Fox, and I had a strong showing. Some dropped edgeguards in the first game allowed him to clutch out a last-stock, last-hit situation to go ahead 1-0, and he 2-stocked me in the second game, giving him the 2-0 in the Battlefield-only set.
I was disappointed, as I came in knowing Diego was the player for me to beat if I wanted a top-4 finish. That said, I was mostly satisfied with how I played, and I know that I need to drastically improve my punish game off of grabs against Falco, something my brother JKJ can help me with this summer.
The doubles bracket went much better, with Bstuk and I notching a 3rd place, getting double-eliminated by Diego and Ministry. For first-time teammates, our synergy was acceptable enough to beat some solid teams, including Mokle-Roshi (Pikachu-Jigglypuff) and Drek-Cookie (Puff-Peach). My Sheik provided some nice support for BStuk's Fox, saving him a fair number of times from hard punishes and potentially-fatal edgeguards. Our double-Fox team against the floaty combination of Drek and Cookie proved to be the right choice, 3-0'ing them rather convincingly.
My success for the day culminated in a 5-character "Iron Man" against WyzDm. My opening strategy of Sheik turned out to be quite excellent, 4-stocking his Falcon and wiping out his Mario and taking his Fox down to a single stock before turning in for the night. If you're counting at home, that's a hefty 11 stocks my Sheik took against her 4. My Marth-FD counterpick finished his Fox without incident, and his DK — a good counterpick, I might add — could only muster a pair of stocks off my Marth. His main, Falco, finally made its appearance, losing just a stock while taking the remaining two from my Marth. I then went with my Falco to close it out, leaving my Fox and Captain Falcon just spectators in my victory.
I had a ton of fun in my farewell (for now) to the Vermont scene, with my college graduation coming well before their next monthly tournament. It was a great tournament experience, and I look forward to my summer back on Long Island, as I plan to level up my singles play and forge a dominant team with my brother. Look out for that Sheik-Falco!
No comments:
Post a Comment