UPDATED: Fixed questions about tier list placement so I didn't sound like an idiot. Also fixed up a couple more things to reflect my changes in thinking about SSF2.
Name (aka Handle): TheCodeSamurai or FirePower11

How old are you?: 13

Which characters do you play in SSF2? Why do you play these characters? (Note: do not list characters that are not currently in the game):

Black Mage: I love playing as BM for his strategic setups and game in general. He has a unique combo game, based on sending opponents down and up, using both air and ground moves. He has fabulous edgeguarding, which is fun to do. He's a very cerebral player, and I like that.

Sora: This is who I would consider my main. I like him in this demo: he has fabulous combos, but to keep from being broken has almost no good kill moves. This makes Sora very opportunistic and very dependent on when he can get kills. He has really quick moves, which means a lot of his combos and setups are very low-risk, one thing I feel is lacking in BM. Also, flowmotion is really fun to use.

Zamus: This is a relatively new character for me, as she hasn't been out long, but I love her style so far. She has really good juggles and combos, but not as good as Sora, but she has the mobility to make up for it. She is also a good edgeguarder, which as I mentioned earlier for me makes the character extremely fun to play. I think this incarnation of her is the best in any Smash game to date.

Meta Knight: This was my favorite character in 0.9a, but in this version I feel he was upstaged by Sora. He still has good combos and juggles, great offstage play, and good mobility and speed. He depends on his mobility and speed, which isn't the best in the cast, a lot, which means that he requires a lot of skill to play, weaving out of opponent's space and avoiding attacks. When you get hits, he can easily rack up percent and a swift nair can finish the opponent, one of the best kill moves in the game.




How much experience do you have with official Smash titles? (SSB64, Melee, Brawl. Include in this answer which characters you play/played.):

Firstly, I follow Melee, Brawl, and PM religiously, so I am aware of the tournament scene and what play looks like at a competitive level.

I have played Melee casually, and hope maybe to play it more someday, but I find the tech skill barrier somewhat annoying. I've always felt that tech skill wasn't an interesting part of the game, and I like characters and games that require more strategy and less tech skill. I main Falco.

I have played Brawl at a competitive level, but haven't been able to attend tournaments. I main ZSS, Falco, and Snake.

I have played PM a lot, and would like to attend tournaments, but haven't. I main Snake (go Professor Pro!) and Mewtwo. I consider Snake the most well-thought-out character in any Smash game. He has an incredibly fun playstyle, isn't broken, and requires that you use everything that he has to the fullest to win.

Have you ever attended any Smash tournaments? If so, give some details about the tournament (number of participants, which games, etc). How well did you place?

I haven't been able to attend any tournaments, much to my dismay, but I hope I can in the future.

When did you start playing SSF2?
I found the game in 0.6, and joined the community in 0.8.

What is your favorite stage in SSF2? Explain.
I love Smashville, because I feel it forces players to adapt to the platform and think fast, because what works one time may not work again.

Who, in your opinion, should be placed first on the SSF2 tier list? Under competitive settings why would this character perform on a higher level than all others?

After much deliberation, I have renounced Chibi-Robo (what a stupid choice), and now believe that Meta Knight is the best character in the game. He has insane priority, fabulous combos, good speed and mobility, amazing edgeguarding, the best recovery in the game, good kill moves for a lightweight, and disjoints in almost all of his attacks.

Who, in your opinion, should be placed last on the SSF2 tier list? Under competitive settings why would this character perform on a lower level than all others?

After much deliberation, I think Jigglypuff is the worst character in the game. She has a terrible kill game with the exception of Rest, which is a mediocre kill move due to its heavy nerf, and has t. She has terrible range, which means that the sword characters, DK, and projectile characters have a really easy time. She gets hard countered IMO by Ichigo, DK, Marth, Link, and Megaman and soft countered by a ton of people (my range is 75-25 or worse for a hard counter, and 60-40 or worse for soft counter). Due to her gaping holes in her MU spread against some of the best characters in the game, she is one of the few characters (or only) that I do not think will be considered viable for high-level play as the meta develops.

If you could make only one change to SSF2 as it currently is, what would it be and why?
I would implement an overall increase in speed and airspeed. This would reduce the ability that certain characters have to dominate the neutral game, and increase the speed of play. This would require some buffs to characters that would do poorly with the new physics, but would IMO increase the quality of play and the fun factor.

What is your view on items in competitive play? Never! Items ruin the idea that the better player will win: they randomly favor particular characters. Imagine if in GF's of a tournament for $5000, your opponent gets a Beam Sword and wins due to an edgeguard that could not have happened without the projectile. You can undo a lot of hard work with one roll of the (metaphorical) dice.

Do you have or can you download Skype? You don't need a mic or webcam. Yes.

Why do you want to join the Smash Flash Back Room? What will you contribute? Why are you an exceptional applicant? Be as detailed as possible. Mostly, I want to see the competitive scene develop and to be a part of it. With online mode, we have one of the first opportunities to test strategies out against people who DI correctly and adapt. We get to rapidly evolve the game and see the game tweaked to make it better. The game is still new, so there is still room for new ideas and room to be the best. Hopefully, by being in the BR, that would be one step closer to me.


Additional information (Include in this section anything relevant to your application. This could include links to videos of yourself playing.)
My YouTube channel has some pretty bad videos of me playing 0.9a, and I am going to add new videos every so often, so it will provide a pretty good sampling of my play. The link is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeOmc8ffAtlz1nWFZeG_t6g/feed

Sora vs Ichigo is a very interesting match-up. Please tell me who you think wins in that match-up, by how much, and why.

Before I answer the question, I'll say that after a bit more work with Ichigo, my opinion on him has drastically changed. I place him in mid-high tier. After a little more playing, I've found a much better combo game, better movement, good range still, better quickness of attacks, and I consider him a good character.
That said, this matchup is very interesting indeed. I think this depends highly on the skill of both players: the Sora player has to FINISH HIM! at every chance, because he won't win if he gets kills at 200%. The Ichigo player needs to stay slippery: don't allow yourself to get juggled and die. Sora is an offensive monster and Ichigo is pretty comboable, so this is of paramount importance.
A quick rundown of Sora and Ichigo's strategy:
Sora
* Get in Ichigo's space and abuse quick attacks and movement
* Once you land a good hit, keep comboing and try to punish hard
* Don't be reckless though: Ichigo's range and movement mean that he can get out of your way and punish your attacks. Don't be reckless for kills either: throwing out random fsmashes will just get you killed, not Ichigo
* Not much here: Sora just has his bread-and-butter combo game in this MU. The main thing is just to try to get in, but punish Ichigo hard.


Ichigo
* This is much more cerebral and difficult, as Ichigo tends to be
* Punish reckless approaches and try to stay just far enough away to not get hit. Once Sora comes at you, wait for an opportunity. Playing aggro is difficult in this matchup because Sora has really good combos, so you get punished hard for missing. Once you get a hit, damage is more important then getting Sora offstage, because Sora's recovery is difficult to edgeguard with FlowMotion and Ichigo has very little besides his (admittedly impressive) dair to edgeguard with. Don't take unnecessary risks: kills come easily in this matchup, so capitalizing on edgeguarding is a risk Ichigo doesn't want to take
* Use Nspec liberally: it provides a good way to approach, and it can block some aerial approaches

Now a more in-depth analysis of the MU:

Approaches
Ichigo is blessed with a fabulous approach game given his flash step, pseudo-waveland, range, and side special. Sora's approach is really the most important thing in the matchup: if Sora can't approach without getting hit, he won't win, and if he can get combos easily after an approach, then Ichigo will die a very painful death. Sora should try to bait things he can punish with Sspec, and abuse his quick aerials to approach with. If Sora jumps and attempts an aerial approach, Ichigo has a choice whether to throw out a nair or some other aerial or anti-air, or just retreat or flash away. Sora should try to maintain stage control so that he can corner Ichigo if he retreats, and if at all possible read Sspec and punish. Ichigo needs to mix this defense up so that he doesn't get punished. If he reads Sora correctly and does the correct thing (either outrange or shield an aerial, or chase after a feinting Sora with dash attack, Sspec, dtilt, etc.), then Ichigo can then just start comboing. However, Sora has a lot of approaching options, and if Ichigo reads incorrectly or fails to react, then Sora can get a combo started.
If Sora is playing campy, then Ichigo can use his range and Nspec to approach safely, until Sora is cornered. This is bad for Sora because he has few ways to deal with Ichigo's approach this way, and so Sora shouldn't ever be in this spot.
Offstage play
For Sora, this is a big deal, but for Ichigo, kills will come anyway. One of the great advantages in this matchup is that Ichigo has far more kill power and survivability, so offstage play will largely be with Ichigo on the defensive. Ichigo's recovery is meh: Sora can read Sspec and edgehog, or try to intercept a high recovery and Uspec with dsmash or fsmash. A nice thing to note is that Sora's usmash has enough of a wind effect to push Ichigo to death if he attempts to recover too high. This is actually reminiscent of Fox's recovery, in that you have to try to bait Uspec so that you can punish it, and avoid trying to guard Sspec whenever possible.
For Ichigo, there isn't much to do: SH dair to punish reckless recoveries, edgehog if necessary, and just do general edgeguarding. Don't go deep, though: the last thing you want is 30%+ after Sora lands FlowMotion, or worse yet to get reverse gimped and lose a stock. Ichigo should live extremely long in this matchup, so SD'ing would be terrible.

Kill moves
Sora has basically no kill moves except usmash and fsmash, so save at least one of them. Both have good range and are fairly fast, however, so Sora shouldn't have too much of a problem. My rudimentary tests show that Ichigo should have a tough time living past 150-175%, as both usmash and fsmash kill by that point.
Ichigo has nothing to worry about: even at 120%, Ichigo can kill with every aerial except fair, every smash except dsmash, and situational back throw kills near an edge.

Chaingrabs
Rudimentary testing again shows that Ichigo has a CG up to around 30% (depending on DI), and Sora has roughly the same. One advantage for Sora is that he doesn't need much space to perform his, because it sends opponents back and forth, while Ichigo cannot easily convert unless on FD and the right side of the stage or some similar situation. This doesn't really affect play much, because both of these characters can combo and do so much damage anyway: the CG is just an addition to a smorgasbord of combos for both players that deal far more than 30%.

Stages
Sora wants a stage without impediments to his combo game and fairly short blast zones for easy killing. Ichigo's recovery isn't that good, however, so you can get away with a big stage if it has a lot of space that isn't on the main platform. For this reason I think FD is a good Sora pick, but N3DS is not. Sora IMO has, in order, these top stages: FD, Jungle Hijinx, Castle Siege. Ichigo wants a big stage for two reasons: room to use his range and movement options, and so that he lives longer. Sora will die regardless of how big the stage is, but Sora requires a small stage to KO well, so a big stage is better for Ichigo. However, his recovery is pretty bad, so some stages like FD launch him too far to recover. Additionally, he wants platforms for movement, although this is secondary to the other considerations. I think Ichigo's best stages are, in order, Lunar Core, Clock Town, and Dracula's Castle.

Conclusion and Percentage Estimates
This matchup is all about the Ichigo player playing fairly defensively and trying to punish hard on Sora's mistakes. Sora plays offensively, and tries to get in and combo hard.
The question of who "wins" is very difficult. I think it is very even, but the superiority of Sora's combo game gives him a 55-45 advantage, outweighing his weakness in kill power. However, this is highly dependent on players and is not a very accurate prediction, but I feel it accurately represents the Platonic ideal of what would happen in the game.

TL; DR
Sora has a slight advantage due to his combo game which outweighs his lack of kill power, but Ichigo can punish hard and kill early, making for an intense battle where neither side can screw up without paying the price.




This may have been overdone, but oh well. I hope this is a satisfactory answer to your question.


EDIT: Added section on stages.

Bumping this app, because some people who applied after me have been rejected or accepted earlier than I have. Any more questions?

Determine whether the following stages are Neutral, Counterpick or Banned. Please be detailed in your response and assume that hazards are off.

- Bowser's Castle
- Clock Town
- Casino Night Zone
- Wario Ware Inc.
- Tower of Salvation
- Nintendo 3DS
- Mirror Chamber

Bowser's Castle:
The blast zones are really close to the edge of the stage, so it can give really early kills. Additionally, there is basically nowhere on the stage that you have to recover from, so it favors people with poor recoveries excessively. This makes it banned, because it can give unbalanced play. It isn't fair to be able to kill at <50% from the edge easily.

Clock Town:
This is the most questionable of the decisions I have made, although I stand by it. It allows forms of planking to be easier because the edges are so close to each other, so people like Meta Knight or Jigglypuff can basically stall as long as it takes to get off the edge safely. The blast zones are still close to the edges, so people with horizontal kill moves have a huge advantage if they get lucky and get an opponent near the edge.

Casino Night Zone:
This stage is perfectly fine except for one reason: the small vertical walls on the main platform. It's pretty small, so if no infinites are discovered that can be performed, then I think this would be Counterpick (it's too big to be a neutral stage, like Lunar Core). However, I think Fox has Shine infinites, and other characters may still have infinites as well (Goku may have a down-throw infinite, and various characters have d-tilt or f-tilt combos that go on way too long). In light of this, Casino Night Zone cannot be used for competitive play.

Wario Ware:
This is really close to the virtually undisputed neutral Yoshi's Story: it's pretty small, but not excessively so: there is space off the main stage for recovery and air game: there is a reasonable ceiling. This, to me, is a pretty certain neutral, at least if Yoshi's Story is.

ToS:
There really isn't another neutral this is similar to, but it's a neutral none the less. It has a reasonably sized main platform, two moving platforms to either side that are symmetrical and don't unbalance the stage, and the blast zones are reasonable as well. This makes it a neutral, because it doesn't favor particular characters too much.

N3DS:
The easiest choice here by far: the stage is virtually identical, aside from small changes to blast zone length and the size of the main platform, to FD, one of the most basic neutrals in any smash game.

Mirror Chamber:
The stage has a reasonable platform assortment, but the blast zones are slightly too close to the main stage, and the space for recovery is slightly too small, to make it a neutral stage. Characters like DK or Ichigo can use this as a counterpick, but it should be banned for starting a match because of the heavy advantage it gives certain characters.

Bump.

We are still looking at your app. Don't worry, you haven't been forgotten.

Thanks. Just didn't want it to be drowned under the new applicant threads.