This was the first tournament I have been to in a while where I had no obligations whatsoever, I didn't have to stream, I didn't have to commentate. I was there to compete, soley and wholey. I did fill in a little bit as stream runner and did a little commentating, but no more than I wanted to.

I trained for a few days leading up to this event, I would have trained a lot more but I was recuperating from smash nest 7 and had a lot of work to do that week up until friday. Still I trained as much as I could while by myself, but it still wasn't enough for the fox dittos I was about to come up against.

So about them hands...

I recently found out I have carpal tunnel in my left wrist, which sucks to be sure. It doesn't mean my career is RIP, it just means I have to get it taken care of, So I have been wearing a brace and taking medication for it, and while it has been getting better it still isn't up to par just yet. But hey at some point in the next few months my hands will be back to full speed ahead and able to follow every command I give them.

I sat down for pools and my first set was against Dang. Who beat me in a set at last weeks smash nest just 6 days before.

Set 1 Dang Vs. Mofat

We played the classic fox ditto and while I believe it was 2-1 it was still a very clean victory for him for a couple of reasons, for one his neutral was a little bit better, or more accurately mine was lack luster at best. A lot of my loss stemmed from the fact that I fell for very simple gimps and edge guards and not to mention I fell into a whole lot of baits, I really just didn't play very well looking back on it. I had been practicing chain grabs on fox as fox in 20XX but they just don't give you good enough practice on the real thing. I would up throw around zero and go for the regrab but his slight di was throwing me off. When I decided I needed to go for up smash on low percent up throws I couldn't get it because I hadn't practice initial dash upsmash. I got beat quite soundly even though I knew exactly what to do I just couldn't get my hands to cooperate, my tech skill was an absolute mess.

Set 2 Mofat Vs. Koda

I believe this guy played falco or fox, or both? I don't remember that well because it was 2-0 and I didn't face any especially difficult challenges against him.

Set 3 Mofat Vs. Seven

So this Seven guy played sheik and had a whooooole bunch of bad habits to exploit, as I am sure a lot of players do. The only reason I knew this though is because I literally sat behind him while he had a set with bart's fox and took notes on all his easily punishable habits. And largely thanks to the notes I took I had a very solid 2-0 against him, even though my tech skill was still at a pretty low level compared to what I am usually capable of.

Set 4 Mofat Vs Dang

Cool! A rematch, I sat down and was like "Shit, I know I probably can't beat him in the fox ditto with my tech skill like this." But I played the first game as Fox anyway, I lost. I was thinking about my strategy when I saw the pool captain stroll by, and for some reason I asked "Hey, is this best of 5?" He said he would go and ask the TO, he returned and said "Yeah you guys can play best of 5" So we proceeded with the set and I lost the second game, he said good games and tried to shake my hand when I informed him it was best of 5. So at this point I had totally given up on a fox ditto against this guy and thats when the Link came out. I thought that even though we were pretty close in terms of the fox skill, his fox ditto powers were stronger. So I thought "I really really don't think he knows what to do against Link." and something about his playstyle just resonated with my instincts, I picked Link and we went to game 3, he CP'd to FD and it was a very close game but I ended up clutching it out with a nair guard at the end.  The fourth game I two stocked his fox very solidily with Link on dreamland. Game 5 he went sheik and I 3 stocked him. 

So I won the set..right? Not according to the TO's. I completely disagree with this decision because there should have been more discretion is informing the TO staff on what was and what was not best of five. Even though I won the set in a best of five they counted it as a best of 3 and I lost the first 2 games they counted it as my loss and seeded me into the amateur bracket instead of the top 24 bracket. I am not exactly upset with this descision because this is usually how far I get in pools anyway but still, it was a little shady bit of TO'ing.

I was upset that I was put into the "Amateur" bracket for two reasons, one I am not an amateur and two I was by far the strongest player in the bracket. Let go into those sets shall we?

Set 1 Mofat Vs. Smuck

I was seeded into the second round of amateur bracket and I first faced Smuck, a Falco player, who I promptly 2-1'd. I am not sure if it even was a 2-1 because I just don't remember losing a match.

Set 2 Mofat Vs. Teabag

Thinking back I didn in fact drop a game to Smuck but I remember that as I sat down to play tea bag, another falco player, I was thinking "Hey I got to warm up on Smuck so this one should go a little smoother" My set vs. Teabag WAS a 2-0. With shenanigans. 

I then got into winners semi's and went up against Sorsaki

Set 3 Mofat Vs. SoriSaki

This one was actually a bit of a struggle at times due to the fact that every mother fucking marth under the sun seems to know how to perfectly combo fox on any stage. I won game 1 pretty cleanly, game 2 I lost bad enough that I decided it just wasn't worth the risk to keep going fox against this guy. I switched to Link and game 3 was a shut out, a three stock or so with Link, once against lack of match up knowledge was my ally. Also as a fox main, fuck marth.

Set 4 Mofat Vs. Selise

So this one was a bit of a challenge for me at first because I am just awful at the sheik match up, just terrible. So when Selise took game 1  I wasn't surprised at all, agitated sure but not surprised. I got really really pissed that I lost to him because I knew my over skill was higher and then I proceed to beat him the next three games solidly, with winners Finals in the bag for the first time in my life I was sitting in grand finals of a none local tournament. The hype of was greatly lessened by the fact it was in the amateur bracket. then again I did have to overcome a few personal shortcomings to get to that point.

I wandered around and watched the people left in the losers bracket duke it out to get to the grand finals spot. Eventually it came down to Selise Vs. Ogino. 

Selise Vs. OGino.

At first it look relatively even with both of them doing pretty well vs each other, I remember hoping that Selise would win so I could have an easier time at first place, but then a small part of me started to hope for a much bigger challenge. I was going to get my wish, Selise dropped two straight games of sheik dittos to OGino, the second of which was pretty devistating, he switched to peach game 3 and was beaten the same as the last game, and so Grand Finals for me and OGino was set.

Set 5 - Grand Finals - Mofat Vs. OGino

I took notes on OGino the entire time he was playing Selise but it turned out to barely make a difference as the first game was ripe with me getting grabbed and tech chased all over the stage, it still wasn't that bad of a loss game 1 but it was enough to make me think I had my work cut out for me. And to make me start to take serious notes on the sheik match up.

Game 2 started up and I was just hoping to not get grabbed as much, and that started happening, I was getting away with a lot more and punishing his whiffed grabs. But then something really strange happened, he just kind of stopped approaching. He started camping and for some reason I came in guns blazing and was getting punished with grabs left and right. This was another perfect example of every fucking person on the planet knowing the fox match up inside and out because they have to. I was again beat game 2.

Before game 3 started I was thinking "Shit, I am just not good enough at the sheik match up with fox...I haven't sheik ditto'd in a long time but..."   With that line of thinking I went in for the sheik ditto and I thank god he was not the type of degenerate low life that chain grabbed in sheik dittos, neither am I. So we had ourselves a fair Sheik ditto and because the style of the character forced me to slow down I saw a lot of openings on this guy and was beginning to exploit them. Not a lot but just enough that I won game 3.

Game 4 however was a completely different story. I got demolished, wrecked, destroyed, call it whatever you want it wasn't pretty, I got three stocked and we went to a bracket reset.

Grand Finals Set 2 - Mofat vs OGino

Fox didn't work, Sheik didn't work and muttered to myself out loud "This is a bad idea" then put the cursor over Link and pressed A, We struck to dreamland. I did not do well, I did my best to play the match up right but by that point I was too shaken to really do anything correctly. I lost Game 1

Game 2 I decided to stick with Link and try to regain my composure, however game 2 went much much much worse than game 1 did and I was three stocked in the blink of an eye. 

Game 3 - I laughed to myself and thought "Ok last one, lets get this done with." I switched back to fox and thought "Ok man this is it, give it all you've got and go out with a bang." And that was my mind set going into the turn around game of the set. Something happened I didn't quite expect, my mind cleared up and my hands started responding to every single command I gave them. I picked up on just about every bad habit he had. I fell into the zone and just started punishing him and taking stock after stock commandingly as if this was how it was supposed to be the whole time, After a waveshine all the way across Yoshi's and into the lower blast zone I suddenly got all my moment and composure and confidence back. My tech skill was suddenly on point and I was using to my fullest ability.

Game 4 - He switched to marth which I didn't understand but it gave me an enormous confidence boost as I am just so much better against marth than I am against sheik. He of course took me to Final Destination where he planned to chain grabbed the shit out of me but instead I turned the tables instantly netting my own grab and turning it into a up air chain that connected more times than I have ever achieved before, and honestly way more times than it should have, that was the last time I got that many as he promptly learned to avoid them or dair me as I came in for another up air. Even though he took a fair amount of stocked thanks to FD I still solidly won game 4.

Game 5 - He stayed Marth for reasons I still don't understand and took me to pokemon stadium where I proceed to do the exact same thing to him as I did game 4, there isn't a lot to say about this one except that the last three games I played extremely well, as good as I really should have been playing the entire time. 

So I won..kind of? I won the amateur bracket sure but its not what I wanted, although it is somewhat nice to know that I am officially the absolute best amateur level player in Oregon. If I had been seeded into top 24 my night would have been over much much sooner. 3 more sets at best is what I would have gotten. But thanks to me "losing" in losers finals of my pool I was put into a situation where I got the much needed practice of strengthening my hands endurance to last throughout an entire tournament and also some much, much needed sheik practice. And against someone with very good sheik fundamentals too.

Power output

Grand finals set 2 game 3-5  - 90%

Everything else - 50%