Not sure where I would start my Evo experience, so I’ll start with Zenith.

Zenith

After losing NCR to HBox and Kings of Cali to PP, Zenith was a huge tourney for me. My heart wasn’t all there for those losses, but losing to people I know I’m way better than combined with the timing of Melee at EVO brought it back.

Going into Zenith, I just knew I wanted to win. I wanted to start the MaNg0 hype train for EVO, but going into the tourney I couldn’t get my heart into it enough and didn’t play like I wanted to win. It wasn’t until I lost to M2K in winners when I realized that I was tired of losing when I knew I could easily win. SO after the loss i took a walk by myself to get my mentality ready for the rest of the tourney.

I just told myself to stop being a moron, to stop going to ham at the edge. Not to get too down on myself when I make a bad decision and instead learn from it and adapt like I knew I could. And most importantly to stop thinking everytime I got hit or messed up that it was STRICTLY my fault and give the other players credit, then adapt.

A big reason for a lot of my losses was that I didn’t want to work for them and just assume everything was my fault instead of accepting that other players are good too.When I was younger and won all the time it was because I knew I had to work for everything and that nothing would be free and to give everyone credit and when they outplayed me, to give them the credit they deserved and make sure it didn’t happen again. Then move on to the next stock. I was able to find that mentality.

Anyone whos ever competed in something and wanted to win more then anything knows, theres a certain zone, a certain mindset. You have to be very zen-like (at least I do). It’s crazy when I play melee and I’m able to reach this state. I see things diffrently, all that matters is winning, it’s almost like I’m not the same person. For the first time in forever I was able to reach this mindset and way of thinking. The best part about being in this state is that I trust myself so much. With tech skill, reads, knowing when to go for something, doing some crazy mango stuff, whatever it is, I have SO MUCH trust that it’ll work.

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Next up, MaNg0’s set against PP at Zenith. Click here for part 2!

Watch the gameplay analysis here!