[Smash] Interview with EMG | KirbyKaze

I will be attending MLG.

That's a difficult question to answer. Returning to the game since my retirement hasn't been incredibly smooth. That said, I have reasonable confidence that I can perform at a strong enough level to get through the event and place respectably.

I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic.

For a while I was working for a catering company to try and get some extra money so I could finish up my degree. So I've been working and been in school.

I think my peak skill level is still very high but I am far less consistent than I was in 2012. I'm more prone to off days than I was back in 2012; I feel that my best trait as a player at my 'peak' two years ago was simply that my 'off days' were still very, very good. I've got a few ideas on how to correct this, but the improvement process for upgrading consistency is generally the most cumbersome part of improvement in any sort of competitive game IMO. It requires a lot of discipline and the rewards tend to be less noticeable in the short term.

I think the biggest things that set the top players apart from the rest of the competition is how they construct favourable situations in a manner that doesn't put them at huge risk. When I see players like Hax vs M2K (just this last weekened, in fact), Hax outplayed M2K for the vast majority of the match. Hax won more combat exchanges, got solid hits in, but ultimately he took risks that were completely unnecessary and offered him little benefit. Even Mango, who's reputedly one of the most aggressive players in the business, rarely puts himself into that sort of danger without a really good reason. The top 5 are less impulsive, have greater patience, and generally look to control a situation before risking anything on it.

As for what I'm doing to try and regain my status as a real tournament threat? A lot of what I've been doing lately has been studying matches and trying to approach the combat in the game as a series of action-reaction relationships. The interesting thing about games to me is that it's a player vs player interaction but it occurs within the constraints of a game. Meaning that while people might have goals in mind, what they can actually do in their current situation is limited by what their character can do too. Understanding this relationship in a more confident manner I feel is essential to combatting the control-oriented styles that are becoming more dominant; I need to know what my opponent is trying to do before I can actually beat him.

And aside from studying the game I'm trying to play more with the talented players in my region (Raynex, Weon-X, I.B, etc). I'm also actively practicing my movement and solo-techniques a bit more too. Anything to get an edge, really.

I think in 2007 the best players in Canada were all Quebec players. Bam, Vwins, pkmvodka, Chesterr01, and Kage.

Toronto didn't really get good until about 2009 or 2010. I'd say nowadays it's probably a mix of me, EMG|Weon-X, Kage, Vwins, and I.B.

As for how we stack up against the rest of the world, I'd say we do fairly respectably overall. Kage got something like 17th at APEX 2014, I.B recently got 3rd at NWM in Seattle, Weon-X and I both got top 8 at ROM7, and Vwins never does poorly in USA (although he hasn't been there in a while).

I think the reason we were able to surpass Quebec was mostly because of the rivalries within our region. Toronto didn't really have a clear cut best player for a very long time and there was always a lot of contention for the top spot. So we were always very heated with one another. We were also a bit more academic about how we approached improvement so unlike Quebec we would study certain details of the game to understand them better. Chain grab percentages, character weights, dash ranges... anything that we thought could give us an edge, really. Quebec had been better than us for so long that they were kind of complacent and stuck to more traditional methods of improvement. Eventually we just sort of caught up.

We used to have an E.C. vs W.C. split, similar to that of USA. B.C. and the prairies were generally considered W.C., while Toronto & Quebec were considered E.C. At Toronto / Quebec regionals we'd usually subdivide E.C. to our provinces too. But at larger Canadian events if we had W.C. represented then we'd usually do E.C. vs W.C.

I certainly feel like I represent Canada when I play internationally, but more than anything I feel like I represent my part of Canada. I feel like I'm representing our unique way of improving and the community that I am a regular participant of.

I feel there are perks of being one of "the Canadian Smashers". There's some level of intrigue attached because the USA players don't get to play against you as often. But you also have to be comfortable playing with a crowd against you. And you also have to be prepared to fight styles you might not have had a chance to really practice against either. We're a smaller community, after all.

I think Arcadian tournaments are probably one of the best things a community can do to improve growth within a region.

Arcadian tournaments are tournaments for unranked players within a region. I ran one with Raynex in Toronto recently and we hit 117 entrants. It was a really eye-opening experience for a lot of up & coming players who simply didn't have any experience playing in a long set vs players of their own skill level. People who hadn't had to really face the pressure of being in third round winner's bracket were thrust into an environment where the ability to adapt to stress and manage pressure had a premium attached to it.

We got a lot of positive feedback too, with players saying they felt motivated to come back and couldn't wait for the next one.

Change is inevitable. How things "used to be" pays tribute to a time where many regions couldn't hit 32 entrants for local tournaments. How things "used to be" involves a time where major sponsors wouldn't even look at us because of how lost and disorganized we were.

We are finally reaching a semblance of stability. Because we're learning from our mistakes. The grassroots era was wonderful for what it was, yes. But you can't stop the change -- it's already here.

I feel very few people understand SSBM for what it is. And that's because this is, for many people, their very first competitive game. And it has the disadvantage of being cleverly disguised as a party game.

SSBM is a game about options. You need to understand your opponent's goals when you're in a match. What they want to do, what they can do, and how that relates to the situation at hand (which you're playing a role in creating too; your options and choices are therefore of paramount importance too). But a lot of players do not really understand the gravity of this.

I feel one of the biggest culprits for this is the fact that we have many "how to" videos that teach players how to perform techniques. But very few "why" videos and materials that actually explain why these techniques are important, or how they contribute to a combat mixup, for that matter.

It's so blatant. I recently talked to an up & coming Falco player in my region because he was bummed about his performance at the Arcadian. So I asked him what his understand was about Falco as a character, how he wins, etc.

He said "He can combo people hard."

So at that point I showed him some PPMD matches vs M2K and Armada and explained what was going on... The next day at the local tournament he beat one of our ranked ICs players and took a game off of Weon-X in pools.

I feel a lot of people have a lot of potential that goes unrealized simply because there are very few accessible resources to help guide them. And learning this game from scratch is... very hard.

I don't think Fox and Falco are that bad. I don't think Puff is that bad either.

I think Sheik definitely has everything she needs to overcome the metagame. She has great defense, great punishment, and just enough harassment with her needles (and some gutsy high-risk / high-reward offense options) to give her everything she needs to win against the cast.

Ice Climbers are rough but doable. Ice Climbers are in general a very polarizing character. If you are capable of avoiding their grabs and subsequent punishments then you tend to be fine against them. I think Sheik is capable of doing this; players like Okami have taken sets from players like Fly before.

TECH CHASING! Tech chasing by a mile. They also tend to be very inefficient with their movements, which is directly related to tech chasing.

Tech chasing & responding to a tech chase effectively is a very unique mix of understanding & reading your opponent but it occurs within a certain time window.

You need to distill from how they position themselves coming out of Sheik's throw (or attack) what their options are in their new situation. Which means figuring out what they can do if they're hit by certain options. Other times you'll notice players (especially punishment-oriented spacies) testing a Sheik player, trying to figure out just how good their reaction time actually is with her d-throw --> regrab. Which opens up a whole bunch of opportunities to put their stock away. But a lot of Sheiks don't get past the fact that tech stand --> shine is a tight window and write the situation off as guesswork. But really it's one of the best chances to really get inside your opponent's head and learn about what they're afraid of... and what makes them tick.

I could write a novel about tech chasing. It's such an interesting part of the punishment game.

It's cool. I don't like the draft but I see the reason for it.

Otherwise everyone would probably just pick a Melee character (or Brawl character, I suppose) they were good with and just try to make that style work in SSB4. Which wouldn't afford much room to showcase the changes to the roster on the whole (it seems like a lot has been changed).

I don't really like 4 player FFA in general but again I can see the merit of it. Some characters are probably designed for teams format & have crowd control elements and such. Which probably wouldn't get shown off very well in strict 1v1.

Nintendo seems to be going out of their way an awful lot to show that they care about its competitive Smash Bros. community lately. They removed some of the less potent & glitchy moves from Sheik (her chain), have been giving characters like Zero-Suit Samus a makeover, and some of their new characters seem to draw inspiration from exisitng FGC characters (Greninja looks like an amphibian version of Ibuki in some of the videos) so I think they're definitely trying to make this a competiviely viable game, certainly.

As for whether I'll play it? I think I'll give it a shot. It looks fun. It feels like they're elevating the power levels of the characters as a whole so I'm expecting something very different from SSBM. I don't want to make any real predictions right now, but at times I find myself thinking that it looks sort of PM-esque.

In 2015, I think Frog from Toronto is going to get very good in SSBM.

Outside of Toronto? It's not a very original answer but Gravy could definitely be a force to be reckoned with. He's got a lot of drive and a lot of dedication.

I'm not sure she has one, haha.

I feel Pokemon Stadium is pretty silly at times. I'd probably resurrect Rainbow Cruise.

Armada vs PPMD from Pound 5 Grand Finals.

It's fun, but I tend to prefer Melee.

I hope to. But it would be difficult to surpass the amazingness that was Demo Kirby. That won't stop me from trying though

I don't think so. I don't think politeness interferes with our competitive fighting spirit.

To get started you should probably spend some time to get a feel for your character. I think studying and learning the game mechanically is a very helpful reference and learning tool but SSBM is a very organic fighting game so having a sense of how its physics engine works at a tactile level is very, very helpful.

Beyond that, I think the best three things to practice are:
1) Aiming your character's hitboxes
2) Moving effectively
3) Thinking about what your opponent's goals are vs. what your goals are in a situation and how you'd go about either achieving your goals or countering what your opponent is going for (sometimes there will be overlap.)

To the Toronto community for being such a wonderful place for growth and new ideas to develop. I think we have a very strong understanding of the game at a mechanical level within our community and I think we're gonna begin putting that understanding to good use this year.

I'd like to shoutout to prog for being one of the most driving influences in my life as a whole.

And beyond that I'd like to thank you for taking the time to interview me. It has been quite a privilege

My goal is to be the best player in the world by APEX 2015. I'm not sure it's feasible but frankly I think something like 'feasibility' is a minor detail when it comes to stuff like this

Besides, I've achieved crazier things in this game that weren't 'feasible' haha, like beating HBox with Sheik