Couple days before the event, M2K's friend picked him up from the airport in La Crosse WI, and brought him over to his place, and invited all the local smashers to come and play. Even though I had 3 exams this weekend, I wasn't going to give up a chance to finally meet the King. Luckily they were right across the street from me. I came in, saw my friends playing already with him. I first saw the back of his head and was like "OH SHI-", but I think I played it cool enough so I didn't look like a total tool in front of M2K.
My friend was playing friendlies with M2K, and offered me a chance to play with the King. I asked my friend "How'd you do?", with him just responding "Got wrecked". So I strolled over to Jason and said hi, introduced myself with Jason just shaking my hand and getting right into our game. Of course I got wrecked in the games, whatever he played in PM, Mario, Fox, Sheik/Zelda. But I managed to take at least a stock almost every game, so yay for me. I had to go study only after like an hour, so I shook Jason's hand again and thanked him for the games, he was polite enough to fist bump a scrub like me. Little did he know that weekend, that a lowly scrub would struggle to try to muster up his courage to ask to take a picture with him.
So the week passes and Friday comes, some of my exams done, I go over to my friends house to play with M2K again since he was streaming this weekend. When I get in with some of my crew with me, first thing I see is M2K shirtless and getting out of the shower lol. I was like "SHIRTLESS M2K STRIM???" But I remembered twitch has a rule against clothless streamers, so I was disappointed, and I didn't want to take a picture with a shirtless M2K because that was kinda creepy, but the thought certainly crossed the darker part of my mind.... Anyway I got to be on stream, texted my friend to watch and gave him a shoutout, and my friend replied super jelly as he watched me get wrecked in Melee on stream with like 1000+ people watching. But it's actually quite an experience to get bodied by M2K, you kinda see that what the pros do is completely efficient. They don't do random shit in Melee like me, but they know what combo they need, and how to get it, and then just do it, while I just struggle to look for a combo opening. I learned a little I think, and got to hangout with a relatively happy interactive M2K, so good day to play that day.
The next day was the tournament, Great Revival. Me and my friends get to the venue and it already has 100+ people setting up their CRTs, playing friendlies, interacting with friends and whatnot. I head over to my friends set up and warm up my hands. The only events I signed up for were Melee and PM singles, because Sm4sh is stupidly slow and boring, and I'm bad at doubles Melee so I feel bad for my partner who must think I'm bad at doubles. Before any events start, me and my friend were looking for Darkrain, since we're fans of his awesome Falcon. PM doubles started and my friend had to play, but then I see him. Darkrain in all of his muscular glory, except he was wearing a sweatshirt because it's cold in Wisconsin. But I grab my friend to play friendlies with him and proceed to get wrecked. However, in my games vs Darkrain, I managed to take a stock off him every game, and even managed to wall tech some of Falcon's downairs so people behind me saw that I wasn't a TOTAL scrub I even mustered up enough balls to ask Darkrain for a photo!
The tournament goes on and Melee singles start. In my pool I first faced a Fox/Falco from Iowa who was reasonably decent at the game. Luigi vs Fox is in Fox's favor, but Luigi can get a some pretty good combos on Fox so it's not too bad. I beat him in the first game, he countered Poke Stadium as Falco, and barely managed to beat me with each of us last stock high %. I took the last game though, since he didn't ban out Dreamland vs Luigi, and Luigi lives HELLA long on that stage.
Next game I go up vs a Fox who's actually good, and get wrecked by the dude. He 2stocks me on battlefield and Dreamland. I tried to get my combos going, but shine gimps and upsmash are too good. I get sent down to losers.
Next I go up vs some Kirby and 4 stock him both games since the kid doesn't really know how to play competitively. But my hardest set was vs a Sheik who was kind of known in his local area. I think he was from Milwaukee, maybe Minnesota? But anyway our first game was on FoD, and it was last stock high percent both of us. We trade hits with Luigi's fair and Sheik's nair, and sends both of us off the screen. It was so fucking close, but I barely DIed better to live longer than him, and win the game just barely. The people watching behind us got a little hype over that game, but my heart was gonna burst haha. I manage to take the set 2-1, but all the games were super close.
Then I play vs another Luigi, except this guy's Luigi is better than mine, and we're both from La Crosse, so I knew this guy and his playstyle well enough. This match would determine who would advance from Pools to Top 32 to play with the best like Darkrain, M2K, Kels and Frootloop. I proceeded to get defeated 2-0, but the games weren't stomps. All in all I was happy with my performance, I didn't expect to make it to bracket, but I almost managed, so not bad for my first "big" tournament.
M2K proceeded to win all games and tournaments except PM doubles, since Frootloop and Dart played VERY well to take those games.But Frootloop repped Wisconsin well, and made us proud of him. I got to play vs Frootloop in my PM sets, and he was a very polite dude, had fun playing with him.
Finally the day after the tournament, I was hanging with my crew and M2K on stream again, and managed to be brave enough to ask a picture with him. M2K was pretty happy that day since he made some good money from the tournament and from hanging out with his stream viewers, so he gladly obliged. I left to go study, but later that night I tuned in to the stream and saw M2K drunk talking to Mango's girlfriend over the phone, which made me regret leaving, but I had fun hanging out with him, getting destroyed in Melee. Overall M2K was a cool dude to hang out with, but he could be whiny at times and I see why he rubs people the wrong way.
If you read all of this, you deserve a cookie. Thanks for reading!