I’m still recovering from the weekend in snow New Jersey, but here are my thoughts leaving Apex (only gameplay related)

1. Europe is good at teams

Do you get excited over PewFat combos? I’d like to invite you to watch several of the sets featuring Armada/Android or Leffen/Ice. They put on a clinic of fantastic team combos, marvelous recoveries, and great zoning.

2. aMSa is good

Playing multiple games is really difficult to do. Mew2King’s play crumbled as a result from having to switch from Melee and Smash 4. However, aMSa quietly put on an excellent multi-game performance by finishing 9th in Smash 4 and 5th in Melee. Meanwhile, Mew2King finished 5th in Smash 4 and 9th in Melee. Aside from his Smash 4 performance (which was amazing by the way), he defeated Zhu, LuCKy, Fly Amanita, SFAT, and KirbyKaze and also took Mango to a game 5, using Yoshi. These are results that would easily lead to wins in Socal’s Super Smash Sundays tournament. Let that sink in your head.

3. Norcal!!!!

Sorry for my Cali Bias, but the upper echelon of Norcal performed very well at Apex.

Norcal had the most players in the top 12 with 3 players. Not even Socal could muster anyone outside of Mango. Between the big 3 of Norcal, they had two wins against gods and had two more sets that went to last games against other gods. Although I’d say Florida is a favorite in a 5v5 crew battle, I’m not sure if they could have beaten Norcal if they played at Apex 2015.

4. Mini retirements

Several high level players have taken minor breaks and seen a minor resurgence. In the MLG days, Azen took a short break, but managed to win a MLG and placed amazingly well in the circuit. Ken took a mini-hiatus prior to Evo 2007 and managed to win it. It takes a long while for a player to drop an entire tier in gameplay. Looking at prior precedences, it’s not really too surprising that PPMD was able to compete among the world’s best after a short 6 month break. Fundamentals are fundamentals.

5. 20xx

Everyone saw Armada gradually switch from Peach to Fox in the Top 8 and are groaning about the inevitability of a Fox-only meta. Yet in Top 8, we saw the following characters:

Sheik
Marth
Falco
Peach
Fox
JigglyPuff
Yoshi

That’s 7 unique characters. There was only one Fox-only main and the other two Fox users (Mango and Armada) used their other characters extensively in Top 8. This leads me to my next point….

6. Dual Maining to win

I have made this point before, but Best of 5s show why you need a pocket secondary. It’s too difficult to overcome a hard-counterpick situation and hope to win 3-1 in the other 4 games. PPMD has Falco and Marth. Armada has Peach and Fox. Mango has Falco and Fox. Leffen, the only solo-mainer in the top 4, did not have to play against Mew2King on FD.

Armada’s Peach lost to PPMD’s Marth in Winner’s Bracket because he simply ran out of stages for that particular matchup and ended up counterpicking himself. The remaining stages that Armada had were mostly small stages, unfit for pulling turnips safely.

7. NTSC Shenanigans

Android had his bracket run pulled short, thanks to the lovely Drephen, who shamelessly chain-grabbed the Swedish native for a swift 2-0 victory. Poor Android didn’t see what was coming.

8. The Mango-Apex Curse Continues

Mango’s Finishes
Apex 2010 – 25th
Apex 2012 – 3rd
Apex 2013 – 4th
Apex 2014 – 3rd
Apex 2015 – 4th

Mango has won 2 Big Houses, 2 Evos and 1 MLG. Yet, he has yet to even make 1 grand finals appearance at Apex. On one hand, this is a string of 2 poor performances from Mango (BEAST included). His play was incredibly sloppy and his competition has improved. Maybe people should be worried about his results and skill. On the other hand, we’ve seen this from Mango during the Winter before and he’s bounced back. We’ll see…

9. PPMD’s Dash Dance Game

Do yourself a favor and watch PPMD’s Marth against Leffen and PewPewU. It was sheer brilliance watching him repeatedly bait his opponents into nervous spot dodges and bad whiffs.

10. #tafostats are cool

“Eggs are a good source of protein”. /Shameless self plug