Name (aka Handle):

Skailler

How old are you?:

Right now, I am fifteen years old.

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):

- Pikachu: Pika is fast, has good approaches with his Fair and an amazing projectile. He can gimp his opponent very fast with his great air game and posseses good kill moves in his FSmash, UpSmash, UpAir, DAir and Thunder. He also has a great recovery with Skull Bash and Quick Attack and being able to sweetspot the ledge from almost everywhere. Quick Attack Cancel is a decent tool for approaching, attacking, and retreating and gives Pikachu to play like a hit-and-run character. He can camp with his Thunder Jolt and SH Nairs or play offense all the way. I love how versatile Pika can be played.

- Jigglypuff: Puff is propably the most unique character in the roster. Her ground game is one of the worst in the game, with FSmash and UpSmash being one of the few "viable" options. Her air game though more makes up for it - her air speed and mobility, the ability to WOP like half of the roster, her very good recovery and her ability to let her Airials flow into each other fits my playstyle as an air fighter very well. She has good kill moves in a fresh Bair and Fair, Rest, gimp like nobody´s business or just combo the heck out of you.

- Tails: The yellow fox is in my opinion the most technical character to learn in SSF2, surpassing Fox and Goku with ease. He has a great (if not the best) mobility (although his vertical movement is worse than his horizontal/ground game), posesses an incredibly useful and easy to pull off Wavedash which really helps with lading his kill moves and can even destroy camping characters with some well dosed Spindashes. His sliding Up-B provides him a relatively easy escape possibility, especially on Stages like Pokémon Stadium 3 or Smashville. His offstage game is pretty useful too, having such a powerful spike as Tails is definetly an advantage in many matchups, as Tails doesn´t always have to rely on his UpSmash, DSmash, Bair and Uair and maybe a fresh Fair to K.O., but use his Dair as an easy way to get a stock leading at the beginning. Tails can even combo into Dair and Uair with two Side-Bs --> Dair and UpThrow-Forward-->UAir if not DIed properly.

- Samus: Samus is not really a Main, more a Secondary I like to choose whenever I struggle with my three Mains. Being a Floatie and a Heavyweight at the same time is something I really appreciate, because it makes it harder to combo her and thus having a bit struggle to get the needed damage. Samus is propably the best zoning character tied with Link. Her Missile give her a good time stopping approaches, espeacially with Missile Cancelling. Zair and weak Charged Shots help her with her zoning as well by creating a wall of projectiles that is hard to overcome sometimes. Zair is also a great recovery tool as it has great range and little to none start up. Speaking of recovery: Bomb Jumping, Zair and Screw Attack all sum up to a decent recovery which is really not easy to gimp. If Samus gets cornered, she can just escape with a Screw Attack. I also have discovered a new technique which I call Bomb Cancel, it is practically dropping a bomb and perfroming any attack as it is about to explode, allowing Samus to stay in the explosion without getting forced into a Bomb Jump. It gives you some kind of shield to protect yourself, has a suprise effect on many players and gives Samus the opportunity to follow up with anything she likes to or just cover herself while charging her Charge Beam; Bomb Cancel is just so useful for Samus despite it´s little startup. Although the orange bounty hunter struggles get her K.O.s, she can get her percentage with her zoning game and then go in or snipe them with a powered up Charge Beam or a Super Missile. DSmash is her best non-projectile kill move in terms of Knockback, it has good range and little start up. FSmash, DTilt, Bair and UpTilt work well on higher percentages, but lack of range or have long startup.

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

I played Melee sometimes when I was a kid, but I guess that doesn´t count. I mained Pichu because everyone said that he sucked and I wanted to prove them wrong.

I have been playing Brawl for 5 years, my only "real" Main was Olimar, but sometimes I switched to Lucario or Toon Link. However, I stopped playing Brawl half a year ago, so I certainly would have problems if I picked it up again.

I don´t know if it counts, but I also play Project M and main R.O.B., Samus and Lucario.

Sadly, I have no experience with SSB64 or SSB3DS.

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?

Unfortunately not. There are no tourneys which would be somewhat near to my location, and I am the only one I know who still plays Smash Bros. Sometimes I can play with a friend, but that is no real replacement as they play like Level 4 AIs.


When did you start playing SSF2?

I first played SSF2 after finding out that SSF hat a sequel, which was at Version 0.5. However, I only jumped in and played some matches instead of really playing it. I started playing SSF2 regularly shortly after the release of 0.9a.

What is your favorite stage in SSF2? Explain.

Smashville. The main layout is similar to FD/3DS, but the big, moving platform allows some extended air combos. The platform also makes each combo unique as you cannot always use the platform as a help to continue comboing, but forces the players to think of a good finisher situationly. And I like stages that keeps you moving and using different combos, mainly because you can stay more unpredictable and try more stuuf out you wouldn´t under "normal" circumstances.

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?

Pikachu. He has the best recovery in the game after the characters with multiple jumps by using Skull Bash, DJ, his good air speed and finally Quick Attack. The priority on his moves with electric bonus is just insane and his speed is also very high, both air and ground. He has great gimping abilities with Nair, Fair, Dair, UpAir, Thunder Jolt and Thunder, has one of the (if not the best) projectiles in the game with Thunder Jolt and has some high kill power in his UpSmash, FSamsh, Dair, to some extent DSmash, and a sweetspotted Thunder, which will never happen in most cases though. He can move around at very high speeds with Quick Attack Cancel as well and is also hard to hard due to his relatively small size. His only problem is his weight.

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?

My guess would be Chibi-Robo. He just hasn´t enough tools to make up with the rest of the roster. He lacks kill power (only moves with K.O.-potential I can think of are Dair and maybe UpAir and Bair), suffers from being realtively light yet a Fastfaller, making him easy to combo and he has a bad vertical recovery. Toothbrush can help, but if your primary recovery move is as high as a regular jump, it can´t do that much. His projectile is too slow to actually be a threat and suffers from angling problems, nor can he stop approaches that good. The only thing he can do is stop projectile heavy characters like Link, Samus and Mega Man, but if you have like two or three projectiles coming at you and you can only backfire one at a time, Pick Up doesn´t help that much either, not to mention that Link and Mega Man are characters that have good melee attacks too.

If you could make only one change to SSF2 as it currently is, what would it be and why?

I would change the function of Star K.O.s and Screen K.O.s. It is plainly unfair to lose a match by percentage although you practically killed your opponent and the game just doesn´t let it count. I wouldn´t remove them, but rather let the K.O. count once the animation starts (so at the point when the player is past the blast zones) and not when it ends.

What is your view on items in competitive play?

No. Way. Items add a purely random factor, which fits in no way into competitive play. Imagine your opponent destroying a Smash Ball while you were recovering from a Bob-Omb hit. Even if you were just about to kill him, his Final Smash will propably kill you instead and have you losing the match. This has nothing to do with skill, but is based on pure luck, which is unacceptable in a 1 vs 1 battle. I see how they work in a more casual match though.

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

I don´t have Skype yet, but I wanted to get it anyways, so this shouldn´t be much of a problem.

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.

I want to join the SFBR because I know I have so many thing to learn, but I am optimistic that I could discover new techniques like Samus´s Bomb Cancel. Being able to have insight at the game would definetly help me in becoming a better Smasher. I will contribute a new way of insight into the game by just trying out things that could work and help others to improve themselves. Why am I an exceptional applicant? Well, I have no problems with just sitting in front of a problem that hinders my playstyle, sit there for a long time and try everything to solve the problem.

Additional information (Include in this section anything relevant to your application. This could include links to videos of yourself playing.)

I don´t have any links to videos yet unfortunately, but I will propably upload some matches on my YouTube channel "Skailler" once and a while.

Use this list to answer the following questions.


1. Which Neutral Stage leads to the most polarizing matchups?

2. Discuss the Ichigo vs Jigglypuff matchup on Sky Sanctuary Zone. Use a 50/50 style ratio to determine the matchup.

3. Imagine you are at a tournament. You lost game one to a Link Player as Samus on Final Destination in a best of 5 set. Assuming that neither of you will switch characters, which stage would you counterpick and why?

Be detailed in your responses.

UPDATED: Expanded the Link vs Samus Stage decision point a bit.
UPDATED AGAIN: Changed the "Best Character in SSF2" part and altered some parts of the original post as well as the Ichigo/Puff and Link/Samus section.



1.) I think it´s Wario Ware, unless I misunderstood the question. It is a small stage, so Lightweights automatically have a disadvantage. However, most Lightweights have a decent-great Combo Game, making up for that point.The small platforms can help some characters with bad approaches, but hinder others like Pikachu or Samus effictively in getting their needed space. This actually helps a lot of characters with the Matchup, as they just can hunt their enemy down without leaving them much room to escape.

2.) I personally think it´s a 60/40 for Ichigo. Jigglypuff needs to get into do well, and SSZ´s platforms hinder her air game a lot, as they give Ichigo enough time to tech on a platform if combo´ed from below or just escape long enough. His Side-B, although nerfed, is still a viable approach option and can be used to shut down the Puffball. However, if Puff catches Ichigo on a platform, she can use her great air game to get Ichigo some good damage. Ichigo will have problems recovering beacuse his Up-B is an invitation for Puff to land a Bair/Fair and Side-B doesn´t go that far after all, making him easy to gimp. Puff on the other hand has few problems getting back as she can almost choose how and when to recover. Ichigo´s Neutral-B can help though as an edgeguarding tool, as it forces Jigglypuff go up, down or airdoge, which will put her down too. But with Puff´s weight, she is goona get K.O´ed by most of Ichigo´s smashes if he manages to land a hard hit.

3.) I propably would go for Sky Sanctuary Zone. The platforms hurt Link more than Samus, as they allow her to Missile Cancel all day, while Bow and Bomb and to some extent Gale Boomerang can be blocked by them. As Samus, I would stay under the platfoms, create my wall of projectiles and wait for him to approach. Gale Boomerang can be stopped by a dash attack, so Link´s best spacing tool can´t be just thrown out randomly unless he catches me off-guard. Of course, Link could just stand there and block my Missiles and Beams with his Hylian Shield, thus ruining my projectile wall, but being pushed backwards would force him to make a move, which I can then interrupt with my projectiles or even an Airial. Link will have to stay under the platforms as well most of the time, as I can get out some Super Missiles really fast with Missile Cancelling. However, if Link manages to get close to me, he will likely make high damage on me, as Samus gets combo´ed easily and lacks good melee attacks.

Any other questions?

Reading your app I came across this:



Mind elaborating on the basis behind this, as well as the balance issues it may introduce (notably Purin's rest)?

Man, I knew I forgot something Anyway, if you use Rest offstage, hit, and your opponent gets Star K.O.ed, he is still alive. Meanwhile, you are still falling to your doom, and it has happened so many times already that I got killed before the Star K.O. animation was over and I lost. Puff has this problem the most, but she isnt the only one. Some other characters have this problem as well, but Puff definetly suffers the most, as Rest is her best kill move based on KB.


Any other questions?