Tl;dr – I got 2nd at a convention tournament

At MFF 2015 on saturday night, there was a smash tournament. Compared to last year's event, this was more akin to an actual tournament than last years FFA fest, which was fun in it's own right. After leaving the Artist alley at 5:00 to get signed up and to get food, I was ready to smash, even if I hadn't played much for 2 months. There I got to talk to Chase and AlphaZeron alot, it was a good group to pass the time with. First match, there was a Megaman player, he was alright. Can't really say too much. Next I met Aura the Red, who had a very speedy Shulk. He Backslashed off the side of the stage though. Really cool person though.

The next match was SeanOtter, who had a really good Dr. Mario/Greninja. He beat me pretty solidly on the first game with Doc. I thought back to the match, decided to see how he'd deal with a more hit and run strategy. Basically, after a good first encounter, I had a lead of 25% and could camp the top platform of Dreamland and let him come to me. Dr. Mario isn't fast, so he can't deal with landing on the top platform quickly without giving up center stage. SeanOtter lost good ground combo's due to mostly being unfamiliar with platform combo set-ups. The match was closer than it should have been, but I won with less than 2 minutes left on the timer. He switched characters and picked Miiverse Field. Greninja would match Fox's speed and prevent the platform camping strategy. The game was petty even for the start. Unfortunately, Sean lost his first stock to an empty hop Up-smash, then shortly after SD'd using Shadowsneak off the edge. I felt sad for him, as the matches we had were really good.

Then there was a WiiFitTrainer player. Unlike Sean, I couldn't camp him due to the character's healing moves. The first game was Smashville I think, should have won, but I got impatient, got spiked by the volleyball move. It was me at 54% and him at 114%- It was a reminder to play more safe, and not to try and edgegaurd with Fox. As far as neutral went, I couldn't do my normal cross ups, as WFT's forward tilt had a really interesting hitbox on his leg. It did seem that the player wasn't used to Fox's autocancel B-Air off platforms. Anycase, I countered Dreamland and won there. I believe we had a really close last game on Battlefield, I closed that one out with Up-throw to Up-air. I really think he could've air-dodged, but It worked.

Semi-finals was with a player named Thunder. He had played Chase before in tournament. Chase won there so I wanted to do the same for him that day. We agree'd to either Battlefield or Smashville depending on RPS. He won so it was Smashville. First, he SD'd off the stage and so I just reset the game and started again. And for my actions, I lost the first game. The second game I counterpicked to Battlefield and won via platform hunting and up-throw up-airs. He countered with Town and City, and I got hit by the Key to Victory. So game 4, I returned and did more up-airs, bairs on Dreamland.

The last game I kinda made an anti-climatic finish. It was Final Destination, so I had to win in more Up-front encounters. Pac is good at putting up obstacles, with Hydrants, Trampolines, various throwables. With no platforms, this was pretty difficult and he took the first stock with a Bell. I somehow managed to get an Up-air kill to get things to last stock. During the games, I found that Reflecting the Pill dash had interesting effects. So did Thunder, so I think he wanted to recover differently the last stock. He went really low off the side and used the trampoline recovery. Before this, I had seen a clip of a Little Mac dropping down and taking Pac-Man's third Up-B bounce. The 4th and last bounce causes a character to fall helplessly, so that was the game.

I will say I must be safer about smash-attacking hydrants. I got punished for that quite a bit.

Got 3-0'd by Shippo in Grand. He did some pretty cool styling on me, it was a fun match regardless of the loss. I got one ledge drop up-air, and a shine out of shield on him. He got a read air-dodge to Sheik Up-smash, and a really nice Bomb-combo. I also received a fair amount of fairs.

I must say thanks to Chase for keeping me on my toes. It was definitely useful in the Mario Match-up. The challonge link for reference: http://challonge.com/mffsm4sh