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Index Melee sheik vs falcon 8 about ken hoang 10 edguard mechanics 12 Analizing luigi 14

Brawl falco vs metaknight 18

interview with ally 20 directional influence 22 pit moveset 24

64 isai the legned 27

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DIRECCION EDITORIALAndrés Felipe Pérez

RELACIONES PÚBLICASAntonio Carlos Rodriguez

DIRECTOR DE ARTEFrancisco Cuevas Ortíz

DISEÑO GRÁFICOAndrés Felipe Pérez

INVESTIGACIÓNAlejandro Ríos “Panteón”Hugo Hernández “Crow”Rafael García “Enrak”

COLABORADORMichelle Escorcia Flórez

AGENTES SECRETOSAxy/Spot

PRODUCCIÓNPablo Mendoza Hdz

EDITORA EJECUTIVAAna María Echevarría

EDITORIA TELEVISA

DIRECTOR GENERAL/VICEPRESIDENTE INTERNACIONALEduardo Michelson

VICEPRESIDENTE EDITORIALIrene Carol

ADMINISTRACIÓN Y FINANZASSergio Carrera

DIRECTOR GENERAL DE MARKETINGGerman Arellano

Año XIII No. 1 Mayo 2013

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MELEE 9

MELEE 11

Player’s Profile

Ken “Kenny” Hoang (born October 10, 1985) is a Vietnamese American professional electronic sports player who plays Super Smash Bros. Melee and has earned $50,000+ USD doing so.Hoang is the 2004-2005

national champion of Major League Gaming, the 2007 international champion of EVO World Finals,and was the highest ranked Super Smash Bros. Melee player in the United States. He was also the world champion for several years,

having defeated reputable players from around the globe, including top Japanese players such as Aniki, Captain Jack, Masashi, Bombsoldier, Korius, and Mikael in the summer of 2005 and 2006.

In the competitive gaming community, he is known simply as “Ken” or by his gamer tag “SephirothKen”.

Ken possesses the highest major tournament win-to-loss ratio of any Super Smash Brothers Melee player from

2003 to 2007.His three years of dominance earned him the nickname “The King of Smash” within the community.

His primary character in the game is Marth, and his secondary is Fox. He received minor television coverage in MTV’s True Life: I’m a Professional Gamer, and received further coverage in the fall of 2006 after MLG arrived on cable television.

Ken was one of the contestants in Survivor: Gabon

Ken was the fifth place finisher, and sixth member of the jury. He voted for Susie

Smith in the final Tribal Council, who placed second.

Mayor Tournament Winnings:

20031st - Tournament Go 4 (TG4) ($900)1st - SoCal Inland Empire SSB:M1st - Tournament Go 5 (TG5) ($1000)

20041st - Game Over ($650)1st - The 0-C (Zero Challenge) ($650)1st - MELEE-FC ($500)9th - Tournament Go 6 (TG6)1st - Major League Gaming (MLG) 2004 Season Finals New

MELEE 13

TIPS & TRICKS

Edge-guarding, or edgeguarding, is the attempt to prevent an off-stage recovering enemy from reaching the stage. Players can achieve this in many ways, and the struggle between

an edge-guarder and their enemy leads to many strategies and mindgames. The anti-strategy is the guard break. Any character can edgeguard, although some are better at it than others. A great example of edgeguarding is Fox’s down special in mid-air.

The player jumps off the stage, hits the opponent with a shine as they recover, jumps quickly to cancel the lag and recovers onto the stage. This is

known as Shine Spiking.

Edge-hogging: A common way to edgeguard is to edge-hog, or grab the ledge so that the opponent cannot. There are several ways to reach the ledge when standingon-stage. The two most common ways areto face away from the ledge and eithershort hop or wavedashbackwards.

Off-stage guarding A risky, but deadly, way of edge-guarding is to jump off-stage and interrupt the opponent in mid-air. The

recovering enemy has few options by which they can defend themself, such as using aerial attacks or directing themself

away from the edge-guarder. When using this style of edge-guarding, most characters put their own

life in jeopardy, being so far off-stage.

On-stage guarding The simplest and safest way to edge-guard is to stand at the edge and throw attacks - often a powerful forward smash, down smash or down tilt that can hit even an edge sweet spotting enemy. While this method of edge-guarding requires the least set-up, it is often thwarted by sweet-spotting or ledge-teching.

MELEE 15

Character GuideGeneral: Luigi is the slippiest, slidiest character in Melee. He’s floaty and has the longest wavedash in the game. Thanks to wavedashing (I’ll go more into detail about this later), Luigi has become one of the most variable characters in the game. He’s got a solid arsenal of fast attacks and a great aerial game.

Pros

-Fast WWW-Moves with good priority -Incredible wavedash -Diverse aerials -Has combos on top tier characters

Let’s look at some pros and cons of Luigi:

Wavedash:Jump, then Airdodge towards

the ground in a diagonal,

downwards direction it should

be done fast enough that you

don’t actually see Luigi leave

the ground. By doing this,

you’ll cause him to slide in

whichever direction you aimed.

Aerial Tips: Luigi’s aerials are great. I see a use for every single one of them. Many characters will have one or two aerials that aren’t so great... but LUIGI FTW

He has 2 strong killing moves, the Fair (Chop) and Dair. These two will kill at maybe 70%+ depending on character. This is just generalized though. A true Luigi player can kill at lower percents (opponent loses second jump to Luigi wd off stage to chop/luigi skillz).

jump then: , and , , or + for different areial moves.

Ground Tips:Two of Luigi’s most IMPORTANT tools in the ground: Ftilt and Shield. When you learn how to use both of these in conjunction with Luigi’s fantastic wavedash, then you’ll already have a solid ground game. Luigi’s Ftilt is his bread and butter when you’re on the floor. It’s range is great, the damage and knockback are decent and the damage will definitely stack up. It combos out of Dthrow for a long time and it’s just... beautiful.

on ground: then = forward tilt, or to shield.

Special moves info:Survival: the reason Luigi needs his missile and tornado to survive is that his UpB only goes straight up. The missile helps with horizontal distance, and the DownB helps with a little bit of both. Use the UpB how you wish, but I recommend at least trying to sweetspot the edge as to avoid getting hit in your vulnerable falling animation. Keep an eye out for being edgehogged.

safe recovering: + , then + (repetadly) to +

The fireball is an underrated move. It’s Luigi’s only projectile. Unlike Mario’s it goes straight forward, even in the air (as opposed to listening to gravity, like Mario’s). You can fireball camp with it, ormess up someone’s recovery with it. Notably Fox and Falco’s recovery,

MELEE 17

BRAWL 19

Matchup Analisisfalco vs metaknight

regardless of getting a gimp or not you can pretty much guarantee that Falco will be eating a lot of damage or at least be put in a terrible position. Falco can put MK in a tough spot, but not nearly as bad as when MK gets Falco offstage. From there the match becomes a guessing game which is in MK’s favor. If

Falco’s view: spaced fair is safe from grab on shield, the on thing falco can do to punish it is dash attack, even if Falco power shields the fair. The only thing Falco can do to get a grab out of fair is to run in and spot dodge, assuming the MK will fair at that situation, but why would he when there’s much better options.

Dtilt is also fairly safe on Falco’s shield, if properly spaced. The only thing Falco can punish with is a jab.

Tornado shouldn’t be so much in this match up, unless you know the Falco isn’t going to punish it properly or you’re going for a punish. Once MK gets Falco offstage,

Falco guesses right while he’s offstage he should get one or two hits at best.

“If MK guesses right while Falco is offstage he will get a stock or possibly get a few hits in and have Falco offstage again.” (dehf, 2012)

Metaknights view: This is the strategy I’ve used against every Falco I’ve played against in tournament and it’s brought me a lot of success up to this point.

On neutrals - Get on a platform and stay there, use tornado to try and bring Falco up onto the

platform with you. Once he’s up there get under him and try to get him in the air and deal as much damage as possible.

Repeat this strategy until you’re above 50%, then rush him down and lay into him with as much aggression as possible. DO NOT use your down smash on him until he’s at roughly 115% and near the edge of the stage.

Once he’s off the edge just do your normal thing and either gimp him or beat his Phantasms with your neutral air, the opening frames of Shuttle Loop, or your Tornado. This is the position you most want Falco to be in: off the stage.

Falco Ad vantages:- Grab game. This is very, very important in this match. If Falco is able to get a grab on Metaknight and tech chase properly after 40%~ then he can easily put Metaknight anywhere between 50% to 80%. Bad news for Metaknight. This is one of Falco’s two most important points against Metaknight.

- Lasers. Lasers limit Metaknight’s approach options and stop every move he has. Proper use of lasers and Phantasms can completely stop Metaknight in his tracks and make Falco hard to touch, plus they can also stun Metaknight

and set up for a kill. This is the other of Falco’s twomost important points vs Metaknight.

- Stage control. This is one of the things Metaknight cannot do. Falco can take control of a large portion of the stage and hold it without ever losing any ground. If Falco can take control of the stage then he will beat Metaknight, but he needs extreme patience and presition to achieve this, and needs to know where to counterpick him.

When used properly it’s impossible for the Falco player to

grab you from a Tornado, but when Mk is at higher percentages then

Falco player can kill you with a laser into an up smash and the Tornado

sets up perfectly for that. Use it aggressively to deny Falco free percent

on you, then when you’re at that percentanyway use it less often. Mach

Tornado is also beautiful for edge guarding in the match as Falco’s Phantasm gets caught by the tornado 90% of the time and makes

it impossible for Falco to get his footing back when he’s off the stage.

- Close range game. Good if he gets inside falco’s defense.

Metaknight advantages:-Power.

It’s much easier for Metaknight to set up for a kill in this match than it is for Falco to kill

Metaknight.

- Edge guarding. Getting back onto

the stage is normally a nightmare for a Falco

player against MK and MK play the

edge game all day long.

- The Tornado is both your best friend

and your enemy.

FALCO metaknight45 - 55

BRAWL 21

Player’s InterviewAlly

Q: Thank you for taking the time to speak with MLG today. You’re a relative new face to the MLG audience. Tell us a bit about yourself: when did you first become aware of the competitive Smash scene, and how long have you played for?

A: I was aware since Melee tournaments were around,

though I never played Melee competitively because I couldn’t travel back then. I’ve been playing Smash since 64 came out.

Q: You mention not being able to travel. How is the Smash community up in Quebec? Are there many local tournaments or competitive players up

there? Do you think geography puts you at a disadvantage?

A: Not being able to travel as in, I had no money, and no one knew me so I couldn’t really travel. The Quebec Melee scene was great, but right it’s kind of dead, and there’s barely a tournament for Melee and Brawl each month,

sometimes one per three months. My location is kind of disadvantageous because I need to pay much more for transportation, even for any 40-to-60 person-sized. tourney in New York. It’s $120 to $145 round trip to get to New York. But we do have great players [in Quebec], they are just not really known.

MLG: Well, you have a pretty diverse range of characters that you play. You’re known not only as a Snake main, but as a player who’s proficient with a variety of characters. How often do you switch up characters during tournaments?

Ally: Depending on my mood, I will either use Snake, MK, Wario, Falcon or other characters. I often switch to another character to keep me in the mood for Brawl — I tend to lose my mood for the game most of the time. I didn’t use any different characters during MLG because I felt like my other characters wouldn’t stand a chance yet.

MLG: With so many characters that you play, what are some of your favorite matchups? And what are some of your least favorite?

Q: Orlando was your first MLG

event. What did you think

about the experience and the

atmosphere?

A: Unique, and I think, other

than Halo’s hype and the

Tekken Grand Finals hype if I’m

not mistaken, Smash had the

biggest hype at MLG Orlando.

The venue was awesome, a

lot of people showed up, and

matches were intense and

mostly close. My only complaint

there was nothing to eat

Q: Well, you have a pretty diverse

range of characters that you play.

You’re known not only as a Snake

main, but as a player who’s proficient

with a variety of characters. How

often do you switch up characters

during tournaments?

A: Depending on my mood, I will either

use Snake, MK, Wario, Falcon or other

characters. I often switch to another

character to keep me in the mood for

Brawl — I tend to lose my mood for

the game most of the time. I only used

snake for this tournament though.

BRAWL 23

advanced techniquesDirectional influence

Momentum Canceling is a very important element of Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s competitive play. The concept is that certain attacks will halt or reduce a character’s aerial momentum and allow them to survive at higher percents. Combined with the ability to attack and air dodge while

tumbling or reeling in Brawl, this makes it possible to use these moves to avoid being KO’d. Momentum Canceling allows for survival around 10-15% longer than you normally would be able to, although it is very character dependent.

Vertical Momentum Canceling

is useful for preventing a character from getting Star KO’d. To do this, simply do any aerial attack as soon as possible after being hit and fast fall as soon as the aerial starts. This can be done slightly faster than normal by pressing down on the C-stick (because the C-stick fast falls

Directional Influence, or DI for short, is a technique that allows a player to control where they are launched or where they move around in a combo, such as a Smart Bomb or Meta Knight’s Mach Tornado. It can help characters live to ridiculously high percentages.

desired trajectory

normal trajectory

dead zone

the Down Aerial automatically). The effectiveness of this technique depends on the difference between the character’s normal fall speed and their fast fall speed.

Horizontal Momentum is used in order to prevent being KO’d off the sides of the stage. This is much more character dependent than Vertical Momentum Canceling, but the basic idea is performing the character’s fastest Aerial Attack (or an air dodge) and then jump toward the stage. The jump helps cancel some momentum and the aerial/airdodge allows characters to jump sooner than they would normally be able to.

BRAWL 25

Character Guidepit moveset

New comer to brawl, angelic archer, winged solider of Palutena, and the hero of Kid Icarus, Pit.Anyway, this is the Ultimate Pit Guide of the Smash World Forum. The goal of this thread is to compile all of the information about Pit in one spot. The contributors, are everyone and anyone with useful information. The information is organized in to sections that can be found in the table of contents above. Pit is the main character from the SNES series Kid carus, and the newly released kid icarus 3DS.

Kid Icarus, is an action platform video game for the Famicom Disk System in Japan and the Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe and North America. The first entry in Nintendo’s Kid Icarus series, it was published in Japan in December 1986, and in Europe and North America in February and July 1987, respectively. It was later re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, and for the Wii’s Virtual Console online service in 2007. A sequel to this game was released for the Game Boy in 1991, and a third entry to the series was published for the Nintendo 3DS handheld console in March 2012.The plot of Kid Icarus revolves around protagonist Pit’s quest for three sacred treasures, which he must equip to rescue the Grecian fantasy world Angel Land and its ruler, the goddess Palutena. The player controls Pit through platform areas while fighting monsters and collecting items. Their objective is to reach the end of the levels.

U-tilt:

Range: Short horizontal but mid vertical The first hit is when Pit puts his sword on the ground to hold himself up and it is the hardest to hit with, this knocks them up The hits are when Pit kicks into the air, hit 2 sends up.

F-tilt:

Range: Mid-Long % - 12% to 5% Knockback: Ok Knock back. Sends your target slightly above a strait horizontal line. Description: Pit takes a step and then he stabs with his two swords in front of him.

D-tilt

Range: Short-Mid % - 11% to 5% Knockback: Pops them straight up. It can cause your opponents to trip. the edge of the stage and your front foot is touching them this becomes a very powerful spike, but is very hard to do.

BRAWL 27

64bit 29

The Smash LegendISAI ALVARADO

Joel Isai Alvarado, aka “Isai”, is considered the World Champion of Super Smash Bros. and was ranked 7th best in the United States in Melee before he retired. He mains Pikachu and Link in Super Smash Bros. (his favorite characters are Kirby, Samus, Luigi, Fox, and Mario) and mained Captain Falcon, Fox, and Sheik in Melee. He was also ranked first on the NorCal Power Rankings. Having retired from Melee, Isai now plays Super Smash Bros. exclusively.Isai in his prime was regarded as the best Melee Captain Falcon in the world. “Isai is too good” became a meme in the Smash community. Although his placings at Melee singles tournaments lowered over time, he is one of the few players to have defeated previous Melee World Champion

Ken Hoang multiple times.

Isai and Ken constituted El Chocolate Diablo, the strongest doubles team in the world circa 2004-2006. El Chocolate Diablo remained undefeated in tournament sets until their loss to Taj and Forward and placed 1st at every tournament they entered until placing 2nd behind Azen and Chillindude at MLG Chicago 2006. However, Isai and Ken would later win the final MLG National Championship for Melee teams in 2006. Following this win, El Chocolate Diablo became inactive for almost a year until their final appearance at Super Champ Combo, where they placed 7th.

Despite his success, Isai gradually lost interest in Melee. In early 2010, Isai expressed interest in playing Melee seriously again, but after smashing with Scar and entering a handful of tournaments, Isai still did not find it enjoyable anymore.

TriviaIsai often used the in-game tags “VI” and “MEL” in Melee. In Super Smash Bros, his YouTube video tag is “malva” if it is an online match or “Isai” if it is a console match. His nickname “malva” originates from his mother’s Windows login name (she used the initial ‘m’ for her name plus a shortened version of her last name, Alvarado or ‘alva’).Isai’s youtube page is MevseC. This nickname originates from the fact that he plays Marvel vs Capcom (MvsC). He added the two ‘e’ letters in the middle to make it look cooler and sound like a name.

Noticing that there were exceptional SSB64 players in Japan and Peru, Isai

Isai calls online smash ‘fake smash’ due to the delay and lag experienced online. He also calls it fake smash because by definition, it is emulated and thus merely a copy or imitation of the real game on the nintendo console.

traveled to both of these countries and played the the top players there (e.g. Jousuke, the Japanese national champion and Gerson, the Peruvian national champion). He is one of the few SSB64 players to make a serious effort to travel internationally multiple times in order to play the top SSB64 players from around the world.