 Alright folks, Nathaniel Ruffeljantz here, before I get into this, be sure to enter our Nintendo Switch Super Smash Bros. Ultimate giveaway through the glean.io link down in the description. Drop a like, subscribe for more, you guys know the drill. I want to look at this because this deals with Super Smash Bros. Melee, this deals with competitive Smash in general, this deals with a strategy in competitive Smash, and it explains why I've never been able to get into competitive Smash. While this is one outlying situation, things like this seem to always crop up in the Smash community and as a gamer it just confuses me. So let's just get into what happened. So obviously as this Kotaku article says, a melee player quits a match over opponents jigglypuff stalling. So this is over the weekend an entire venue with Super Smash Bros. competitors and spectators lost their collective minds over the actions of one jigglypuff player. Did he cheat in some way? Will Overboard after a win? Destroy a CRT? Yell obscenities to the audience? No. He simply played to the Pokemon strings in a favorable matchup, causing his opponent to get so frustrated he unplugged his controller and left in a huff. Fighting games are all about matchups, since characters often differ from one another in terms of move lists and play styles, competition can sometimes begin right at the character's select screen. In Street Fighter for instance, Daulism is almost always going to have an advantage over Zangief due to the way he can control space with his stretchy limbs. Super Smash Bros. melee has a similar matchup in jigglypuff vs ice climbers, in which the floaty Pokemon is able to run away as soon as she gets a life lead, therefore keeping distance between herself and the duo's scary mix ups and grabs. This exact scenario played out at the Battle of BC3 in Vancouver, Canada this past weekend. At the events, Super Smash Bros. melee tournament reached the finals, Alejandro Cengo Gastronom played the jigglypuff strings in a match against ice climbers main, Chaucer Foxybro, Gilson using Puff's hit and run gameplay to keep his opponent at bay. Foxybro wearing a custom shirt, emblemized with free fox to protect the tournament's banning of the ice climbers controversial wobbling technique, fought back admirably and ended up forcing a crucial 5th game to decide who would remain in the tournament. Throughout that fight though, he looked frustrated. In previous games, Foxybro regularly shook his head in apparent disproval of Cengo's tactics as he entered the final game of the match, he changed his in-game name to play as a way to signal his criticism of Cengo's keep away game. When Cengo continued to play defensively, Foxybro barely contained irritation and boiled over, 5 minutes into the game, Cengo held a slight 3-2 stock advantage thanks to his ability to float from platform to platform and avoid Foxybro's ice climber assault. Unable to make any headway, Foxybro simply stopped moving. Cengo, due to his life lead, had zero reason to approach an opponent that excelled in close quarters combat and waited for the opposite end of the stage leading to a standstill. The commentary team complained, the audience complained, a fellow Super Smash Bros. melee player, Johnny S2J Kim held up two middle fingers in the front row, real mature man, and fueled inaction on stage, everyone booed, even the commentators, but in spite of all this, Cengo sat stone-faced refusing to engage until Foxybro finally unplugged his controller and walked off stage. So here is a video of it, I've already watched it, but let's just, we'll just get it going here again. As you can see, there's Cengo, you know, able to keep away from ice climbers with a one stack lead by just being floaty, because ice climbers isn't able to make up the distance. I tried to make game five so hype. Ice climbers is fine. It's not pan out that way. No, it's, it's, it'll be hype. It's coming down to the wire. Yeah, I think it's gonna come down to time. Boo! Look at, Hugo's so bored. Boo! This is embarrassing, man. Boo! I see Johnny Boo. He's so pissed, look at him. I'm gonna explain why in a moment. Oh, no. Johnny just flipped off the double. So, as it goes forward here, we've an important job to do and we failed. Foxybro unplugged his controller. We've let this top eight. Guys, I promise the rest of the top eight is gonna be hype. I think so. I'm so sorry. Do we have any more? We should have listened. Here he goes. Oh, he's done. He's done. Probably no. Yeah. And then he goes and he's done. He's so done. So, my problem isn't with the play. My problem is with the people booing. My problem is with the middle fingers being thrown up. My problem is with the audience. But let me finish off this article and then we'll get into why. And you're gonna see this in the comment section on this article. I, I think this is an embarrassment the way that people are acting. Because this person, Chango, didn't do anything wrong. Played within the rules, won a match. Why would you play any differently? They don't get paid by some moral code in a fighting game. The point of a fighting game is to win the match. To win the match with all means necessary within the established rules. And I also don't think wobbling should have been banned either, to be honest. But that's an entirely different debate. The point is that wobbling was banned. What Jigglypuff was doing was not. What are you gonna do? You're gonna throw a shot clock in here? Alright, let me just continue. So the above video immediately caused divisions in the greater fighting game community on social media. Spital unpredictable lines. Classic fighting game players saw nothing wrong with Chango's play. Compared to Justin Wong's famous ability to play lame or turtle through many of his matches. The smash scene, however, has a very different idea of what constitutes a legitimate play. Due to the way characters like Fox and Falco have dominated tournaments, the community believes fast combo heavy matches should form the basis of competition. Which is an absolutely ridiculous notion, because you might as well eliminate every floaty character in Smash then. That is a stupid, stupid way to look at competitive play. But whatever, this is why I can't get into competitive play. I think defensive play is as impressive as offensive play. I'm sorry that people out there feel that if you're not an offensive type player, you shouldn't play. I think it's entirely stupid. Jigglypuff is built to be a defensive character. He's always built to be a defensive character. Who gives a crap if they play defense to win? Don't play Ice Climbers! Play so- Alright, so, um, focus- Oh, by the way, Hungrybox, he's another one who used to, or at least has been, using this similar strategy for many years. So, you go down here and you see some of the discussion. And I really like what this person had to say. I think this is the key point that I want to make in this video and why I can't get into competitive Smash. It's stuff like this that prevents me from entering a competitive environment in any game. I have for many years maintained that truism, that fighting with honor creates only a moral obligation to lose. You cannot sort a route around your opponent's tactics that's on you. As long as the play is within the established rules, which it was, any ideas about respectful engagement need to get right the hell out. And this whole disrespectful to those watching the match bit is ridiculous. The contest is between the players. While it's absolutely true that the fan community provides the base against which these folks apply their trade, the fact is that the winner and loser is not determined by audience approval. It's determined by the result in the game. And before anyone starts, yes, yes, I know the community says differently. That's not that's why I'm not part of it. I find it absolutely ridiculous. And they find me an intolerable, faster and most probably do. See, I agree with this mentality. This is what it competitive Smash. If you ever wonder competitive Smash Bros players or the competitive Smash community, why you don't have a broader acceptance in truism, why you don't have a broader acceptance in terms of the general Nintendo fan base. Why you don't have an even bigger audience than you already do. Why you have this nuanced ability to just annoy many fighting fans around you that aren't necessarily into the Smash scene. This kind of crap is why. Chango did nothing wrong. He used the tactics that are best to his advantage to advance and win in a tournament. That is what you're supposed to do to win an advance in a tournament. There's no unwritten rule that you must engage the opponent if the best strategy is to play defense. If the best strategy is to play avoidance, that's what you do. And all of us casual Smash fans understand this because we've done it. We've gone into matches where there's 1v1, 1v1v1, 2v2s, and we've gone into avoidance mode sometimes when we have defensive characters because that's the best strategy to win. There's nothing wrong with it. I don't find that strategy to be boring at all. That strategy takes just as much skill as being an offensive player. Alright, so a bunch of people agreeing with him and all this stuff, but then you get down to this person, you know, taken by trees. He says that this is a prime example of how the Smash community feels. So how is anyone defending this keep away bullshit? It's Smash Bros, not Outlast, as if that matters. This is why we have things like Shot Clock and Basketball. So a team doesn't get a lead in dribbling circles for the next 40 minutes. If you're going to join a competition for a fighting game, then fight you P-word. Well, here's the thing. You can't compare this to the Shot Clock and he's actually going to... So there's some guys here who said because it worked and it's within the rules and he says, okay, but there's a Shot Clock till the game ends. There's a Clock till the game ends, you know, like there is, you know, 4-12 minute quarters in the NBA, you know, obviously 48 minutes, you know, obviously you can just let the timer run out. There's a Clock till the game ends, sure, but that's no countdown forcing Jigglypuff to be active in the fight. A Shot Clock and Basketball forces a team to be offensive and go for points. He's not wrong there. I love basketball. So holding the ball for more than 30 seconds without taking the shot at the net results in a foul. It doesn't actually result in a foul. It results in a turnover, but whatever, this person clearly isn't like a big basketball fan because you would never call a Shot Clock violation a foul. Anyways, a one-to-one comparison in Smash would be if a rule forced a player to make contact with an opponent within a certain time limit or risk losing a stock, I'm sorry, in basketball, when the Shot Clock runs out, do you just hand the team other points or do you not get a chance to play defense? Shot Clock violations don't cause you to lose games. Shot Clock violations are intended to increase the pace of play. It's got nothing to do with the defensive strategy just dribbling the ball around for 48 minutes. It has to do with increasing the pace of play, okay? It is a rule created to increase the pace of play. You still get a chance to play defense. You could still be a team that runs the Shot Clock down to absolutely nothing. It's still a valid strategy. What happens is there are teams out there that slow play the Shot Clock. They will play that Shot Clock down until the very last second, every single possession to limit the amount of possession the opponent gets. And if they end up with a Shot Clock violation, they end up with a Shot Clock violation and they still get a chance to play defense and the other team isn't just handed the lead, right? You don't just get a Shot Clock violation at three points. Like, you can't put a Shot Clock in Smash Bros. because if you put one in Smash Bros. to try to force contact with a player and you don't get it done within rules, which will end up being a judgment call at times, you don't get contact done in time within that set 30-second period or whatever the hell you're trying to set, you know what you end up with doing? You end up handing the match to other people for that violation. Handing the match. They don't hand basketball games over due to Shot Clock violations. That's a stupid way to look at this. This is why I can't get behind competitive Smash and I'm not going to say every competitive Smash player believes in this and thinks this is wrong and you're going to come in and tell me how casual I am and how much I shouldn't even be talking on this topic and I'm stupid and I don't understand. Look, this is stupid. This is stupid. A jigglypuff player played within the rules and won the match with a defensive strategy. That's what he's supposed to do. He played to the character's strength. Why should he play to the strength of the opponent? Tell me right now, Smash community, if you truly believe in this, why should someone in a competitive situation that has absolutely zero benefit to that player play to the strategy of the opponent? Why? This is so dumb. It's dumb, I'm probably even upset about it. But that's because I've wanted to get into the competitive Smash community for so long, and this crap like this, it just makes me not care. Like, there's no honor when you're trying to win. You know, when you're playing in Fortnite and Battle Royale, there's no, you know, oh man, this guy slipped on the thumbstick, so let's just pause for a second while he rebuilds his forward order. No, you can't take him out. If a player wants to play defensive and camp inside a damn bathroom for the entire damn match and then pop out at the end with a sniper rifle and peg you off from the distance and get the win, that's a legit strategy. That's a defensive play. So I'm going to argue it's a smart defensive play. Is it boring to watch? Maybe, but who cares? You think it matters? You're trying to win, damn it. You're trying to win. That's just like in the NFL, how there are strategies to run the ball nonstop, instead of always throwing it and wasting clock and yeah, maybe you only get three points and a half and it ends up being boring to watch on TV, but if that's the best chance your team has to win based on the talent available, then that's the strategy you're going to use. Why would you play to the strategy of the opponent? I don't understand what this is all about anymore, but I just wanted to just talk about this because this frustrates me beyond that. It's just like the people that are complaining about the Smash Balls, and I don't know if you guys knew this. The Smash community is complaining about the final Smash Balls in the official Nintendo tournament. And I understand why complaints like this exist, the randomness to it, all this stuff, just like they complain when items are on in those tournaments. But you know what? That is the rule set Nintendo set and if you don't like the damn rules then don't play the game, right? If you do not like the rules, don't play. You don't like Nintendo's rules in their tournaments with items and the final Smash Ball, then guess what? Don't play. No one's making you participate in that tournament. You knew the rules going in. You don't get to complain about those rules after you agreed to them when you started to play. Complain about it by not playing in the tournament and starting up a petition about how Nintendo should change their rules. Don't join the tournament and then complain how the tournament results can play out because you don't like the fact that items and Smash Balls are on. You don't like the rule about Jigglypuff? You don't like that Jigglypuff can do this? Then don't join a tournament that has rules in place that allows it to happen. Don't complain about the player. Don't participate in the tournament if you're not willing to deal with it. You don't like that they got rid of the wobble move for ice climbers? Then don't participate in the tournament. Don't complain about it when you agreed to the rules heading in. You knew what you got yourself and do. Anyways, I'm Nathana RoboDance from Nintendo Prime. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you guys in the next video.