All those years playing Super Smash Bros. Melee have paid off!...
[This is almost a copy and paste of what I sent to a friend. So if you're that friend, this entry should look familiar. ;P]
We had a SSBM tourney at my school today.. seems that no one else around here plays like my friend Ambrose and I do. ;P The tournament was done in a Swiss triple elimination style, so each round, players are paired with others that have similar win/loss ratios, and a player is only eliminated after three losses. So early on, Ambrose and I were the only ones to get to 4 straight wins with no losses, so we had to face each other then. I won that time, and a few rounds later I was still 7-0, but then since no one else was, I had to play against Ambrose again. He won then, and then like another game or so later I was paired with him again, and so on.. lost twice to him. He lost once to another player too, so then in the semifinals, Ambrose or I had secured at least 3rd place and one of us had to eliminate the other. ;P So we ended up playing against each other a total of four times, with me winning the first and fourth game, and him winning the second and third.
Then for the finals, I kinda won by default because my last opponent opted not to pay the entry fee, so he wasn't eligible for the prize money. But nevertheless, I beat him (and I beat him once before in another round too)...
So... all in all, it was fun, and I'm happy I won, but I was also hoping for closer competition. ;P Though it's also awesome that one of my best friends and I were generally dominating, so I at least always do have one good opponent. =P Those games with Ambrose were rather inconsistent though; it wasn't usually a close match. Sometimes I beat him with more than one life remaining, and sometimes he beat me pretty badly too (5 stock)... And no one else ever brought me to below 2... I played twelve matches; four with Ambrose, two with one other, so then six more opponents, so seven people whom I didn't know. There were about 56 people total.
Finally, profit today made by playing my favourite video game! ;P Though I then blew a chunk of it eating out at East Side Mario's... =P
Man.. no opponents other than Ambrose were wave-dashing or anything cool... We got a few names and e-mail addresses of a few others in the tourney though, so chances are we'll play with them some more, and maybe teach them a few things...
So... SK and Arkanos, when are you available to come up to Canada?... =P
SSBM Tip of the Day: Item Usage
[The tournament matches included most items. ;P] In SSBM, you can grab items while you're in the air by pressing the Z button, which helps a lot for getting items quickly. You can also catch items thrown by opponents if timed correctly (like normal, A on ground or Z if you're in the air).
While there are plenty of items in SSBM, not all of them may help your character too much. With melee items such as the Beamsword, your standing and forward ground attacks (forward smash, dash, and tilt forward attacks) change and you lose your ability to grapple opponents, so if you're a character that relies on those heavily like Link (he can't double forward smash with a melee weapon), Marth or Sheik, you don't want to keep melee weapons, but if you're someone like Kirby, you'd want any melee weapon that you can get ahold of. =P And even if you're not going to use something, if it's an item that you can discard (i.e. not Bunny Hood or so), you might as well grab it and throw it off the stage such that your opponent can't use it.
And if you pay attention, Poison Mushrooms are a paler shade of red (and darker) compared to Super Mushrooms, so yes, it is possible to identify whether a mushroom is beneficial or not... But then again, Super Mushrooms may not always be helpful either...