I went there to stream and stream I did the best damn stream I have ever done, its still a mid level stream but I am starting to reach new heights with the level of production I am bringing to the northwest in my stream. Nothing really went wrong during the stream either, a few hiccups here and there but overall everything went very smooth, added an extra camera and a follow cam for pop off's and close ups. And honestly the highlight of the stream was probably smash 4, we had a lot more upsets and near misses in the smash 4 bracket than in the melee bracket and it was very exciting to watch and stream and made for a great follow cam debut. But these blogs really aren't about my stream, they are about my play.

Round Robin Pool

Mofat Vs Shiny

The truly interesting thing about this set was that I didn't know I was playing Shiny, he came up to me and said "We are up in pools" sometimes  when I am in a rush running the stream and playing pools I forget to ask my opponents name, and I am actually really thankful for that this time because Shiny is a player I know to be better than me, with better results as far as I can remember and if I had continued into the set with that on my mind it would have given me a slightly offset mentality. Luckily things worked out that way. At smash nest less than a month before I was knocked out by a puff, at melee at epic a week before that I was knocked out by a puff, the week before that I was knocked out by a puff at another tournament so needless to say I was really damn annoyed with puff and was just so sick of losing to that character. I trained for a week on 20xx getting down my up throw up airs and sneak in up smashes, not to mention I worked on my dash dance game and took notes on M2k Vs Hbox, I asked around for advice on the match up because I was done losing to that character

We went to battlefield for game one because thats where every game one is played. I was very wary of him in game one because I just didn't know where or when to go in on his particular puff, I knew from my notes that I needed to wait for him to bair or fair a little too high, at which point I would go in for a up smash or trade with on up smash. I tried shining him off stage and got him to recover badly a few times which netted me a stock each time. Game one was very close but I won

I can't actually remember where we went for game two,  I believe it was fountain of dreams, but regardless things went significantly less well there, while I felt the momentum was basically even in game one there is no doubt that he had the momentum game two, I did my best to stop and or reverse it but his punishes of my bad recovery options were on point the entire time and boy was I getting pissed. I got beat quite soundly in game two, but there was one more game to be played.

Game three I counter picked to Yoshi's Story and it turned out to be a good choice, I think I got one up throw up air that game and as much as that helped it was really the other adjustments I made that really created a difference, I was no longer doing static up b's in the air that were just begging to get back aired. Instead I was recovering as quickly as possible per the advice Dr.Z gave me when he was up in Oregon attending a local, and it helped, a lot. I noticed many times he knew  I was going to be recovering that way but he couldn't get to the ledge in time because of puff's overall slower mobility. My stock got saved three times because of that which was the defining factor in my game three victory, although there were two sneaky up smashes off of reads, I still credit survival as the number one reason I was able to get any of those reads. From what I've been told that was an upset in the bracket which is actually a huge deal for me not only because I beat a player known as better than me but because I beat a puff in tournament and all my practice and research paid off. 

Mofat Vs. Wauve

2-0 

Mofat Vs. The Very Salty Lady Bug

2-0

As for the rest of the people in my pool they were dq'd because they didn't show up, I can't say how I would have performed against Joka or Zilo but I vaguely remember Joka playing Falcon at some point I think, and since I am garbage against falcon I don't know how that would have gone. But hey, I beat Shiny and thats mostly what counts for me personally, also, I got first in my pool and I got out of pools, that is something I have never done before ever. So I made it top 48...

Top 48

Mofat Vs. Rollerbob 

So Rollerbob played Ganon, a match up that I am good at and know just how to play... But I can't express how much I hate playing it, you have to play it basically like you play against jiggs, camp and laser and bait ganon out, if you get too aggressive you will eat a Fair and mostly likely just be dead after that. I played it wrong game one and lost. As for the next two games there's not a lot to talk about except that the fact that my tech skill was grossly rusty and just flat out not working and I blame hand pains. Yes the hand pain train has started to catch up with me and for that reason my tech skill was little more than garbage that weekend, I won solely off of good neutral plays and reads. It went to game 3 and I clutched it out.

Mofat Vs. Cheif

Again there's isn't a ton to say about this one except that he played sheik and that is a large portion of why  I got 2-0'd by him, I just don't know the new meta against sheik and I am very rusty on it. I have been working on learning new stuff in match ups I am rusty with but its a slow moving work in progress, I usually start to learn this stuff as I get bodied by it in tournament. And Sheik definitely bodied me hard, I kept it close game one but game two I just didn't know what to do and got 3 stocked. I sincerely believe it would have been down to the wire if I knew my match up against sheik. The neutral in particular crippled my chances at winning. And so after a quick 2-0 I was knocked into losers.

Mofat Vs. Jwalker

So, I am of the firm belief that I am a step above jwalker in skill level, however skill cannot make up for stupidity, Game one was sloppy, very very sloppy and I just let him do all sorts of dumb marth stuff to me. I was just kind of walking into it all, and before game two started I went over everything I was doing wrong in my head and more specifically I was looking at the situations I was putting myself in and came up with a solid plan to avoid them and turn them into my favor. My pride was also a little hurt over losing to him game one, which ultimately would prove to be my downfall. I took him to pokemon stadium game two and proceeded to apply everything I had thought about and it paid off extremely well. Game two was one sided and I won solidly. At that point I was thinking "I got this, its no problem." And when it was time for me to ban a stage I looked at final destination and thought "He can't chain grab that well..I'm more worried about platforms" I banned Yoshi's and we went straight to FD. As I said earlier my pride was hurt from game one and even though I set things "right" with game two my judgement was clouded, it was very clear that he was in fact quite solid at the chain grab even before the last match. And even though I started out extremely strong by taking a stock in the first minute while taking hardly any damage myself I started playing the neutral too aggressively, while he also changed up his dash dance game and three grabs equaled three stocks. He beat me. 

I lost almost entirely because I had clouded judgement and made a rookie mistake, one which will never happen again. The worst part is that this was the set before I would have been seeded into top 16. So I guess it goes to show you that keeping a level head in all aspects, not just from rage, but from pride too will benefit you greatly as the tournament progresses. My next tournament is Smash Nest 7 and one week after that is Duck Iceman so I hope that I will see significant mental progress during those two tournaments, especially because I will have nothing to do staff wise with the latter tournament.

 Mentality - Severely bad.

My rage was terrible this tournament, which I attribute in large portions to the fact that I drove 5 1/2 hours none stop, streamed for 6 hours and then slept for 3 then was up in the morning to stream and play.  So I was a little irritable, especially as the day dragged on. So I said things and acted in ways I am not proud of and wish I could take back but all I can do is move forward and work on not making a terrible fool of myself at the next tournament I attend. I've recently taken up drinking chamomile and lavender tea's as I have heard they are supposed to have a calming effect on you, I haven't noticed anything so far but I am just sick and tired of being angry, and while I continue to work on a mentality correction to nullify my rage that is still a ways off so I am looking for something to help in the mean time.

Welp, thanks for reading guys!

-Mofat

PS: I played very strangely this weekend, my hands were in bad shape so I couldn't use tech skill to save my life, I literally could not wave shine so I had to rely completely on winning the neutral, it was a very odd way to play and I was not at all used to it. eh 75%? 80%? I really don't know.