What am I doing wrong?

[Tyrael64]

Hi, everyone. I've been a Luc main since I picked him up in SSE, and I've lurked around these boards for several months now, but never actually posted anything of my own. I've been quietly working on my Luc game by doing friendlies with a tournament-going friend of mine down the street. Occasionally, Hella from DBR comes over and plays too, but he hasn't been over lately, so I've just got records of matches with the other friend.

Anyway, I've got a tournament coming up this weekend in Oakland, CA (don't know the name of it), and I'm honestly nervous as ****. I've never participated in a serious tournament for any game before. I cleaned house in a Melee tournament at my college, but none of them even knew wavedashing, so it wasn't a huge problem for my Ganondorf. I attended a Melee tournament down in LA and watched with star-struck eyes as Internet celebrities such as Taj, M2K, Zelgadis, Germ, Wobbles and Azen came to life right in front of me. This was near the end of Melee's lifespan, around the spring of '07, and I was too discouraged by what I saw there to even begin trying to get competitive in Melee. I just had this feeling of, "I am SO out of my league here."



The point of all this is that with my first tournament coming up on Friday, I need my Luc game to be in top shape, so to do that, I come here, to you guys. I JUST got my GameBridge and Adobe Premiere working this morning, so I don't have a ton of videos up yet. I'll upload more when I get home from work tonight.


***Videos (more to come!)***
vs. Ness
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k22KVT8BMUA
vs. Captain Falcon
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bV0Yqq6PwyA
vs. Lucas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2keRj6A2lU

 

[Trela]

Tyrael, you've got the same problem I have! I was going to make a thread like this, but I thought it wasn't necessary, cause I might not go =/

I'm not really going to a "serious tournament", its just McDonalds Midnight Gaming Championship =O

I seem to need help too. When I need help with a Tournament, I just go to Jeepy's Match-Up thread ^^. So any other suggestions?

That would be really cool to watch Taj play!

 

[LP4Life666]

So let me get this straight...You've posted 200+ times, but have never posted in the Lucario boards before??!!? :embarrass

Good luck on your tournament. Its very gutsy of you to choose Lucario over Snake as your tourney-going character.

 

[dj_pwn1423]

450MB takes a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time.

You should try compressing the vids as much as you can.

 

[null55]

The cherry blossoms wake, the cherry blossoms wither. Together, they are limited. Alone, they are unbound.

 

[navillus]

I've played against Taj and Forward and Hugs and my first Melee tourney was a weekly that Zelgadis (We didn't know who he was and named him Pale Kid) cleaned house at. Getting 4 stocked your first tourney match isn't a good experience. just relax man and have fun. Most of the Pros are really nice and are happy to show you a few things to help you out. In melee I actually got samus advise from HugS. That was cool. Just have fun and play your best.

 

[Tyrael64]

Got home to see a "Upload Complete" screen, so first video is up, OP updated! I'll work on getting a few more up tonight.

Edit: How do I edit the title of a thread?

 

[betterthanbonds9]

dude, you're too aggressive offstage. I do the exact same thing some times, but the 2 times you died, were from after gimping him really well, just going for the kill about 10 seconds too early. if you have to use bair to off ledge gimp like that, you're in a situation you shouldn't be in for 2 reasons 1. bair has a decently slow start up time, letting them be free for a little bit, and 2. has a pretty bad end lag, which makes it next to impossible to recover from that before you fell to your death.

there were a couple times you didn't space well and went for the fsmash and you got pwned for trying to do a dsmash on the platform (serves you right, that move sucks, I'm STILL trying to cut down on my use of it, it's hard to stop old habits).

and for the pros:
-keep up with the aerials on stage, well executed
-force palm
-won the match on a nice gimp at the end instead of doing what you did earlier

needs improvement:
fsmash spacing
more utilt
more ftilt (just use in instead of fsmash sometimes)
less off stage aggression

note: i probably can't back up most of what i said, but i know what I'd LIKE to be able to do

 

[Kasai]

Honestly, I don't think that you're too aggressive off stage but you have to work on being careful when below stage. Bair is a great move especially if you are able to RAR it as an offstage approach (it also works great for hitting snake out of his upB) because it has such good range and, although it might be slower than Lucario's other aerials, is overall still pretty fast. You do want to be careful though because if you miss with it and the opponent gets a chance to grab the edge, you might be too far away to curve past him. Overall, I wouldn't completely stop using bair off the edge but stick to when you're above the stage or only at a point where you know you DON'T need the ledge itself to recover.

As far as other things go, just basic stuff. Work on spacing, incorporating tilts into your game and just general refinement. Also, don't be afraid to mix some other stuff into A A combos. I tend to like A A Dtilt A A FP/Grab...or something of that nature.

 

[Tyrael64]

Video #2 up! Luc vs. Captain Falcon.

Note to self, if I record at lowest quality, the video is only 30MB, instead of 150MB at highest. I'll have to try that when I have new stuff to record.

 

[betterthanbonds9]

if your gonna use DT that much, learn to control it (search reverse dt for more info, you'll find it)

i liked the off stage stuff in the second match, aggressive, but not overly aggrssive that put luc into bad spots

 

[Tyrael64]

Video #3 up, Lucario vs Lucas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2keRj6A2lU

 

[Trela]

Nice fight with Lucas Tyrael. I liked when you Daired his PK Thunder XP

You seem to be fighting tougher opponents then me vsing my friends ~_~

 

[GPEternity]

Tourney on Oak? what? where? i want in =O

 

[Black_Heretic]

Tourney on Oak? what? where? i want in =O

I second this remark

tell me the where and when and I'm there

 

[Tyrael64]

well, as it turns out, the tourney is actually in the sir francis drake hotel in san fransisco. i am posting this on my amazon kindle web browser, hence the lack of capitalization. the tourney is today, and information on it can be found on allisbrawl.com, just search the tournament page for "oakland". registration is starting soon,and though i probably won't get far, i plan to have a **** good time. wish me luck!

 

[Tyrael64]

well humbug. my first match was vs ajax. i got a few kills by grabbing snakes recovery but his ftilt owned me hard. didnt even win one match.....sigh. losers brackets are in a little bit. maybe half an hour. will post after my first match there.

 

[dj_pwn1423]

lol Ajax is too Ftilt happy... I mean, even more so than other Snakes.

 

[Tyrael64]

first round loser's bracket, got paired against a toon link. matches were ::hella:: close, i got in a lucky fsmash at round 3, both of us over 130%. sadly, nobody was recording. loser bracket round 2 starts soon. results coming shortly.

 

[nightSN]

very very aggressive. i can see a punishment for every 5/10 moves you do calm down.
btw your awsome at using dt (: and i love the dair to as near the end of the first vid! LOL

 

[Tyrael64]

well, that's game. i got taken out by some falco named "beast". got 2stocked both matches, i had no freakin' idea what to do. maybe i was sleepy from lunch, i dunno. siiigh.....oh,well. at least i had a great time. met some great guys, notably a kickass black guy with a lucario plushie, smash name is "kuro". i don't have a teammate or a crew, but i'm gonna go to the doubles tomorrow anyway to hang out.

 

[Tyrael64]

Well, that's it for my first tournament experience. This has been the most fun weekend all summer. Yesterday was doubles, which I didn't enter because I knew I was rubbish at teams/haven't found a good partner. However, crew battles were absolutely awesome. Our first crew battle, Hella Crew Style (us) vs FLC. We discuss options and decide to send me in first, since I'm a Lucario main exclusively, and so I'm the least flexible of our team. They figure they'll send me in to my death as cannon fodder to get a good feel for the other team.

Little do they know the power of Aura.

First match-up, Lucario vs Snake on Smashville. After getting ***** by Ajax earlier, I have a better idea of how to fight competant Snakes. I stay back, spam BAS, keep up my spacing, and create walls of pain with hitboxes. Over and over again he would shield a Dair or Ftilt only to be hit by the second blast of Aura. I don't think he really knew how to fight Lucario. Regardless, ftilts and utilts make short work of me, bringing me down to my last stock. Fortunately, the King of Comebacks doesn't disappoint me, and after pulling off a SH-fair-fair-jump-fair-fair-fair-dair kill, I rip out a few Fsmashes and tilts to rack his damage up, then a Dsmash finishes him when he accidentally Fsmashes the wrong way.

Second match, KuroHito (Lucario) vs me (Lucario) on Final Destination. This guy with the Lucario plushie I've been hanging out with all tournament, so to sit down and play him for real felt like the Duel of Destiny. Basically I play REEEAALLY carefully, lots of tilts, SH Fair-Dairs or SH Fair-Nairs, The great part is, since I know Luc so well, I know what moves the other guy would pull out for a certain situation, too. Interestingly, he didn't seem to know about the SEXINESS of Bair's hitbox, or else he didn't use it. He also didn't throw or tilt a lot. He liked air games, but didn't use much Uair or Bair. He kept trying AA-Fpalm on me, over and over again, but I always dodged away from the Fpalm, and I could tell it was frustrating him. Regardless, it was REALLY close. On the final life, I was up past 200%, and every time I got hit, my team would groan, thinking that's game--but NO! DI saves the day, followed by a spotdodge-Fsmash for the win!

By this time, everyone is definitely surprised and impressed that their cannon fodder guy had already taken out nearly half of the enemy team and I'm getting cheers and slaps on the back. Third match comes up, a G&W. Now this time I did roughly the same stuff, played it cool and cautious and safe (thank god for the lack of time limit on crewbattles), walls of hitboxes, etc. I DT'd a few turtles, then backed off, as I didn't want to chance being left open if he started predicting my DTs. Surprisingly, he didn't eat up my BAS with his bucket. Maybe he forgot about it. I managed to take a stock off him, but the Dsmash ***** me for the win.

Regardless, in my first ever crew battle, I took off SEVEN STOCKS with my lonely THREE. THAT is the Power of Aura, baby! I even got a congratulations from a friend of mine, Hella, in DBR. That, more than anything else this weekend, raised my confidence. I walked into this tournament with nervousness and uncertainty, and left Singles with a lighter wallet and shattered dreams. I walked into Crews with a fatalistic attitude, not even sure I wanted to stay around for our battle...and walked out with the praise of tournament-level Smashers and a new level of Smashing self-esteem. I had always dominated my friendly matches at home or college, but never ever thought I was tournament material. I went to Super Champ Combo last year, looked around at the crazy Melee people and thought that I could never, ever enter a tournament, that I simply wasn't good enough, that I could never match up. But now, with at 1 Singles win under my belt and a 7-stock Crews streak, I've discovered, to my eternal shock, that I'm actually COMPETANT at this game on a wider level than just my own friends.

I'm hooked. Tournaments are a blast, you meet new friends, and best of all, EVERYONE there is nice and friendly and casual and chill. Nobody laughs at you for sucking. The trash talking is all jokes and silliness (in the Nevada vs DBR crew battle, Germ was ****ing HILARIOUS. "CBK! Califo'nya Peetzuh Kitchin, son! DD's HUNGREH! e's gotta BIG! GOWLDIN! ****! For da ****! I don't even know what I'm sayin' anymore...").



In conclusion, I have taken my first steps into the larger world of competitive Smash, and it's the most fun I've ever had at a video game.

I love you guys.






POWER OF AURA, BABY!

 

[Trela]

Nice experience Tyrael! I wish I could go to Tourneys more often -_-

Good luck in your next Tourney!