1 week until Apex! Some friends from the community and I are doing a fantasy draft for this upcoming tourney! Basically, choose players that you think that will do well and get points based on how well they do. Whoever has the most points will win!

Follow the action here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhIIQ65G7heHdFg0NlNlS3hjMVh1czB4U3o0VVpIU1E&usp=drive_web#gid=0

Thoughts on Players and Drafting

I thought of trying to bid points for a coveted top 4 pick, but I felt that other players would bid fervently to have the rights to a top 4 player. The big 4 (Mang0, M2K, Dr. PeePee, and Hungrybox) all have a significant skill gap above everyone else. It’s almost a given that they will probably get the majority of the top 4-5 spots in the tournament. In the immediate tier below, there are many question marks in regards to who should be picked at #5 – #15.

As we can see, the top 4 draft positions were taken at a range of 80-130 points, which is really high. I was satisfied with my 8th pick at the cost of 1 point =).

The 2nd Tier
Hax$, Fly Amanita, Silent Wolf, SFAT, PewPewU, Shroomed, Axe, Chu Dat, Fiction, S2J, ColBol, Zhu, Ice, Leffen

Honestly, I don’t think anyone in this tier are a guarantee for top 8. This is where things can get really difficult. At the upper end of the list, I have Hax, Shroomed, Axe, and Fly mainly because of their consistency at previous nationals. Hax$ has picked up a Fox, but I still have my doubts on whether his Fox can consistently beat top 15 calibur players. Axe has had recent issues against Fox/Falcos and can struggle against Sheik, but I do believe he has great nationals success because of people’s lack of familiarity with Pikachu. Same note with Shroomed. Fly Amanita is an interesting pick at this tier. There is no Armada in this bracket and I think Fly has a good enough Sheik to beat Peach main’s such as Bladewise and MacD. If I were to go with picks in a nutshell. I’d prioritize the list to be:

5. Shroomed
6. Axe
7. Fly Amanita
8. Hax$

In the next group are the slew of (most) fast fallers that I view to be very solid but can be very inconsistent. Ice has had a string of great performances and I’m willing to put a little more weight on him as a top performer, given his top 8 performance at Evo. I’m a little bit concerned about Ice’s overall performance against top Fox’s. Leffen has also done well recently and I can see him getting really far with a great bracket. I believe that Colbol, Silent Wolf, Lucky, SFAT, PPU, and Fiction can all make it really far, but they all have had underwhelming performances here and there that make it iffy for me to firmly commit to any one of them. We also have Westballz who has a decent ceiling in terms of placing but also a really low floor. I do hope that Westballz the best in terms of performance, but he needs to have a decent run through winners bracket if he wants to make it far in bracket.

Zhu had a poor Kings of Cali 3 performance, and I sadly think this might be the end of Zhu’s reign in the elite tier. Lastly, I also love Chudat as a high level pick. He carries a high level of tournament experience and beat M2K in a set not too long ago. I expect him to be a great pick with the lack of many strong Peach’s in this tournament.

The “2.5” tier
9. Ice
10. Silent Wolf
11. Leffen
12. PewPewU
13. Chu-Dat
14. Lucky
15. SFAT
16. S2j
17. Westballz
18. Colbol
19. Zhu

The ??? tier
Here is where most people are going to have divergence in their picks. It’s going to be interesting who’s picked late in the 2nd round to the beginning of the 4th round (~18th – 40th pick).

Kage has historically had great nationals performance, but I’m never really comfortable picking a Ganon who can potentially lose early to a Sheik or difficult space animals in bracket.

I think many people, especially from out of region, are underestimating DJN’s evolution as a player. I really love that he’s focusing on his Fox as opposed to playing 3-5 different characters. I still have question marks on how he can do at nationals. Last year, he lost early in loser’s to Tirno, a Texas Falco.

The old school players Cactuar, KoreanDJ, Tope, MacD, and Darc are interesting. They have great tournament experience and have gotten far at larger tournaments before, so I don’t foresee them getting jitters during the event. I do think they are a tier below what’s been mentioned, but I do think they can pull off upsets.

Also, lets toss in Plup and MacD into the tier. I might be underestimating Plup a little bit,but I’ve been slightly disappointed in reaching for Plup in previous Fantasy Drafts and having him under perform in bracket twice (although he did have some tougher brackets). Let’s see if he can match Hbox’s hype finally.

This might be personal bias, but I have been loving what I’ve seen from DarkAtma, placing very well at Big House 3 and some recent Norcal Tournaments, beating Lord and nearly beating PewPewU. His movement and tech skill are impressive.

19. Chillindude
20. Plup
21. Cactuar
22. CTRL|DJNintendo
23. Darc
24. MacD
25. KoreanDJ
26. DarkAtma
27. Bladewise
28. Tope
29. Fuzzyness

2014 Meta Notes

1.) Multi-maining and Double Blind Picks

I believe it’s Kage that made a quip about multi-maining being necessary. In other games such as Street Fighter, having a secondary is very common to overcome difficult matchups. In UMVC3, people have dedicated times to playing specific teams to beating players such as ChrisG and his Morrigan-based team. I do believe the meta in SSBM is also shifting in this direction. With BO5/no bans, it’s becoming too difficult to overcome an auto loss against a character on a specific stage.

Several top players have pocket secondaries. Mang0 will switch between Fox and Falco depending on how he feels. M2K has an awesome array of characters to have an advantage against any character on any stage. Hax$ recently picked up a Fox to overcome the Falco and Jigglypuff matchups. It’ll be interesting to see how this trend continues, increasing the need for double-blind picking at the beginning of sets.

2.) Bracket Pools are the preferred format

It’s amazing how much we’ve grown as a community in terms of tournament participation. We have over 600 players for both Evo and this upcoming Apex. Given this, I no longer see it being feasible for tournament hosts to run round robin pools at larger events. Every match and every set counts.

3.) The importance of adopting to new tech discoveries

I think shield dropping will be mainstream by the middle of 2014 even by newer players. With increased competition and prizes, players will look to gain every advantage they can get. I also think the overall competence of people’s SDI’s and followups will grow significantly this year.

I am excited to see how the skill level continues to grow in everyone. This closes my thoughts for today. Happy Friday everyone!

MIOM|Tafokints