Over the course of June 17th through the 20th I got to go to my first ever Regional for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, Crown II.
It was a blast :)
I'm going to break down the separate parts and write briefly about it and what went down. Honestly, this is more for my journal-keeping, but I hope some of you enjoy reading some of my experiences regardless.
Putting Crew Battles first since it was my favorite event, even though it was the last thing to take place.
Crew Battles:
Crew Battles was my favorite part of the whole weekend.
Crew Battles, simply put, is where you have two regions fight off against each other.
In this case, there were 5 people on each team. You do 1 person vs. 1 person and play a game like normal. But the thing is, stocks carry over. So if I eliminated my opponent, but in the process lost two stocks, during the next game I would start off with 1 stock versus my opponent's three. You go until one crew is out of stocks. So with 5 people on each crew, that meant 15 stocks altogether.
We fought against Reno, which was pretty funny considering that Ben and I would both be in that Region when living in Fallon.
Reno has a top 50 US player, so we knew it was going to be really difficult to win.
The Tournament Organizers encouraged friendly smack-talking, so we were screaming the entire time. Any time the opponent got hit we were yelling at how we were going to destroy them. We were cheering so loud whenever our team got a stock. It was an absolute blast and many of us woke up the next morning with not quite a full voice.
We decided to send in me first since Pokémon Trainer has a pretty good match-up spread and I only play one character (all the other people on our team play multiple characters, which means we could counter pick our opponents accordingly).
They send out a Link player first. Not my favorite match up. But I was in the zone. No nervousness, just focus. I beat him soundly, only losing one stock, which means I have two stocks left over to fight my next opponent.
They send out a Cloud player next. Earlier that day, I was playing friendlies against a Cloud player and was feeling confident against Cloud. Indeed, I played extremely well and only lost one stock and took out his three.
This is where they got serious, and they sent out MFA, the top 50 player in the US. I kept it close, but he took my last stock before I was able to take one.
But overall I took 6 stocks. My whole team was cheering for me. I played some of the best I've ever played, I think. And suddenly, there was a chance that we could actually win the crew battle.
And then MFA proceeded to single handedly take 8 more stocks before he lost his three. He took 9 out of our total of 15 stocks.
It was incredibly difficult to recover from that, but we kept it close. It was so much fun the whole way through. There were a couple pivotal parts that if one of our players took one more stock than they did, we think we could have clutched it out.
But in the end, they were left with 2 stocks when they eliminated our last stock.
Honestly super proud at how Rexburg did. So much fun.
Pre-Local King's Court:
There was a tournament before the regional tournament. This tournament having about 188 people. It was a good place to get out tournament jitters. I definitely know I could have done better. I went 1-2. In fact, all of Rexburg's representation did pretty poorly with Jake, our best representation from Rexburg, also going 1-2.
Not a great start performance-wise for the weekend, but it was a lot of fun and got us warmed up.
King's Court Redemption:
Luckily, there were several redemption brackets. All the people who wanted to that went 1-2 in the main bracket got put in a redemption bracket together. (Same thing happened with those that went 0-2 and 2-2).
I started off by fighting a Link player, I believe. Link is not my favorite match-up, but I kept him overwhelmed, which helps a lot. Solid 2 stock game 1.
Game 2, he switch over to Rosalina & Luma, which I've never really fought against before. It was an uncomfortable match throughout -- a much more difficult game than game 1 -- but I managed to clutch it out before they could force a game 3.
Round 2, I had the luck of fighting Jake. He beat me. As always. We've fought 12 times I think this semester? I've lost every single time.
Drop into loser's and I fight a Shulk. Super fun match. I clutch out game 1, he clutches out game 2. Game 3 was really intense. I got a solid jab-lock to close it out. Ben (who was watching the set) popped off for me.
Next Round I fight Nova, who is a player from our Region. Before this, I've fought him 3 times, and I beat him two of those times. I was confident going in, but I always know that Nova has the potential to beat me. I played solidly and got a clean 2-0.
I then fought a Steve player. And, honestly, I lowkey don't know how he made it that far into bracket. Maybe it's just because I have practice against Steve, but I absolutely destroyed him both games. 3 stock and a 2 stock.
I then fought a Pac-Man player who almost beat Jake in winner's side. Winner of this match fought Jake next. And Jake really really really didn't want to play this Pac-Man again because of their play style. Indeed, they played incredibly campy.
The Pac-Man won game 1 and won game 2. The Pac-Man was up game 3. The thought of Jake really not wanting to play this guy again got me focused up though. I barely clutched it out with some Charizard with rage shenanigans.
Jake proceeded to beat me like normal, haha.
I took 3rd out of 19 and was really happy with it :)
Doubles:
Honestly not much to report here, haha. Ben and I entered as a doubles team and had a blast together, but went 0-2.
Crown II:
Biggest tournament I've entered by far with 416 people. Pretty exciting.
My Round 1 opponent didn't show up. Kind of sad.
Round 2 I fight Splash Daddy, who was seeded 27th (or something close to that). He has a solid 2-0 victory on me, which is expected. But I took him to last stock both games, which I was happy about.
In Loser's I fought someone who I beat up pretty bad. Don't even remember the character they played :/
Next guy I also don't remember, haha. It was closer than the previous match, but I also won that 2-0.
I then fought a Bayonetta who plays a lot lot more patient than the Bayonetta that's in our region. It was definitely do-able, but I lost 2-0.
And that was my tournament run. Half of which I don't remember who I fought against, haha. I went 2-2 (or 3-2, if you count the DQ). I took 129th out of the 416 (of course, tieing for that spot with many many others). I'm happy with how I did. My goal was 2-2 and I hit it.
Crown II Redemption:
Just like the tournament the day before, they ran redemption brackets. Me alongside 38 other people who went 2-2 got put into a tournament bracket against each other.
I should have written about this sooner because I forget a lot of the characters I fought against in this bracket.
Beat my first two opponents.
Next person played Peach, which simply feels uncomfortable to fight against. Game 1 was relatively close the whole time, but you could tell my opponent had the upper hand. Last stock I was at 160% and got a cheesy back air with Charizard that killed my opponent at 60% or something stupid like that. Barely closed out game 1. Which was important because he solidly two stocked me in game 2.
Game 3 I made a lot of adaptions. Kept it close the whole time. Really good game. I closed it out in the end. Really happy with this win.
Next guy was a lot easier, and beat him. Then I lost to a Kazuya. Definitely doable, but I was okay with the loss.
I was rushing to my next event, so I focus as much as I would have liked on my next match. Lost to a Robin. Not sure how well I would've done if I wasn't feeling rushed, but regardless I was okay with the loss.
I got 5th out of 39, which I was super happy about :) Definitely played well and it was good to feel like I could compete with those around my skill level.
Other Experiences (meeting top players/watching Crown live):
So I have this thing where it's really difficult for me to watch sports after the fact. I have to watch it live, or else I lose a lot of interest.
With Smash Brothers, similar thing applies where watching tournaments live on twitch is a lot better than watching it after the fact. With the exception of watching my favorite players/watching my favorite characters, it's a lot harder for me to watch Smash Brothers after the fact.
Well, I didn't anticipate how even more exciting it would be to be in person watching the sets. It's so fun to be part of the crowd cheering for the players. To be part of that energy. So cool.
Got to take a picture with BassMage (my favorite pro player that was in attendance) which was pretty hype :)
