The Evo hype train is easy to ride. How can you not feel the feels as you watch your
favorite gaming all-stars cry with emotions? Not even Silent Wolf can deny the excitement
of a 58-second four-stock by Axe’s Pikachu in top eight.
Now that Evo 2014 is over, the flood of recap blog
posts clogs your news feed and people just can’t stop talking about how mature
Mango has grown and how much Prog made them cry during his speech.
But new questions arise. Chances are you’re sitting in
your room reading about Evo and wondering if we’ll get in next year. Wondering
how many tournaments Melee has left. All this talk of Melee being the oldest
game featured at Evo (by a lot) is kinda getting to you. The game seems to have
stood the test of time, but how long could a 2001 Gamecube game really last?
Will Smash 4 leave Melee in the dust?
I’m not here to be a downer. I promise.
In fact, I’ve come up with some ways to rev up the
Melee scene, even after Evo 2014 has come and gone. Part of what makes us awesome is our
passion, our spark. Our drive. Determination. Whatever you want to call it, it’s
what got us into Evo last year, and it’s what has kept this scene alive since
2002. Here’s how to keep it
going.
Get better
at what you do.
Focus on yourself. What do you most love and excel
at in the Melee scene? Do you play a mean Falcon? Run a great stream?
Commentate? Whatever gets your heart aflutter, get better at it. We need more amazing Falcons, top-notch streams,
and on-point commentators. Figure out what you most enjoy about Melee and
practice those things at every opportunity. If you enjoy running tournaments,
focus your time on providing the best tournament experience for your attendees.
If you truly enjoy being part of this community, do your best to improve
yourself so you may better serve the community as a whole.
Be yourself.
This goes hand in hand with #1. Another incredible
aspect of the Melee crowd is its fantastic diversity. No two smashers are alike.
That being said, I often see newcomers trying hard to “fit in” with everyone
around them, whether it’s by overusing the vernacular, showing off their (rather
useless) knowledge of Melee mechanics, or faithfully remaining in the highest
tier of characters. Just because everyone is on about Fox taking over the world
doesn’t mean you have to play Fox to keep up with the game. Play the characters
you enjoy, and let your personality shine through your playstyle.
“That is the way to learn the most, that when you
are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time
passes.”
– Albert Einstein, not a smasher but a pretty cool guy
Likewise, it’s awesome to know a lot about the game,
but in trying to prove yourself you’re probably just being annoying and wasting
your own time. If you’re really passionate about memorizing Mew2King’s info
dump, knock yourself out. Otherwise, spend your time learning things that
interest and benefit you. The Melee
community doesn’t need more Hungryboxes, Mangoes, and Mew2Kings, we need more
awesome personalities that bring their own unique perspective to the game. We
need you.
Remember
the past…
I still get crazy excited when I watch the MLG NY 2006 grand finals between PC Chris and Ken. Sets like that, the ones that make
history, will never die.
Never forget the effort that we have put into
keeping Melee alive. We’ve been pulled through our darkest times to become
stronger than ever before. We crushed the Evo 2013 poll by a landslide and when
they thought it was a hack, we donated $94k to breast cancer research just to
prove it again. Melee died out quite a bit when Brawl came out in 2008, but
when the new Smash installment left many of us unsatisfied, we fell back to
Melee. Our numbers grew, and continue to grow.
…and look
to the future.
At Evo 2014, with 970 entrants, the number of Melee
entrants grew by nearly 300 since Evo 2013, while the number of Marvel entrants
dropped by almost the same amount (despite Marvel being newer than Melee by ten
years). We are a growing community. With streaming becoming a gaming staple
within the last few years, we’ve gained more exposure than ever and continue to
broaden our audience.
Recently, we’ve made a big step forward by finally receiving
Nintendo’s blessing. Until now
Melee was the rebellious child of Nintendo, unwilling to be forced into
our creators’ design for us. This year, however, Nintendo sponsored Evo, and
thus sponsored competitive Melee. They took a big step forward with the Smash
Invitational at E3 by acknowledging the competitive community and inviting our
stars to their party. Yeah, these gestures were probably to get us all
interested in Smash 4, but even so I think competitive Smash can expect continued
support from Nintendo.
Starting months ago, even before the Smash
invitational, smashers were already complaining about Smash 4, saying it looks
terrible, or that it looks “exactly like Brawl.” Stop being afraid of change
and try to look forward to the next Smash installment. Smash 4 is not going to
be Melee, and it’s probably not going to be Brawl, and it’s not going to be PM
or Smash 64 either. Let’s await this game with an open mind. Maybe Smash 4 and
Melee can coexist.
Give back.
I know I said to focus on yourself before, but now
turn your attention to those around you. What can you do to help others in the
community? It can be as simple as being a respectful tourney goer. Acknowledge
the people who keep things going. A pretty good policy at tournaments is to
thank the TO(s), without whom you wouldn’t be there. Thank the streamers, who
go through more than we give them credit for (as I discussed in my last post).
Offer to help with cleanup if you can spare the time, or at least pick up your trash. I really like making
people food, so whenever I host/co-host tournaments I make sure to feed
everybody a meal. You could provide housing to travelers or offer to practice
with new smashers. Anything that you can do to make someone else’s job easier,
to help everything run more smoothly, to make Smash better, do it.
This summer was inundated with amazing Smash events.
Things may be calming down now, but we have a whole new Smash installment to
look forward to, and there are still plenty of Melee tournaments to come. Ride
the Evo hype as long as it lasts—but find your own hype, too. Dig up your
passions and embrace them. Remember why you still smash. There has never been a
better time to be active in the scene. We are on the rise.
BONUS VIDS TO UP YOUR GAME
• Shiz vs. M2K - Revival of Melee Losers Finals 4 - Nothing beats the raw excitement from the spectators of this match. Shiz will always be one of my favorite players.
• M2K vs. PPMD - MLG Anaheim Losers Semis - An incredibly close set with amazing gameplay from both players. "Ten more years?" "Twenty."
• Hax vs. S2J - Evo 2013 QF - Is there a person on this earth who doesn't enjoy a good Falcon ditto?
• Mango vs. Armada - Genesis 2 GF - Another close set in a dead-even rivalry. When will Armada and Mango fight next?
• The Smash Brothers - Most smashers have seen this, but if you haven't, you really should. This documentary series is an excellent source for Smash history and for perspectives from the pros. If you have seen it, watch it again. The effort that Samox put into creating The Smash Brothers makes it worth watching two or three or ten times.
-Venance
-Venance
