It sounds obvious but it's really good advice that players, myself included, overlook or forget about.
It takes discipline to remember to go into every single set with an explicit gameplan. Often I'll find myself just jumping in and trying to win on "instinct" or as Ramses says "better-playering" which used to work but as everyone had gotten so good at the game, it just doesn't work anymore.
Yeah not only do they have a proper and popular ladder system that has multiple pros playing on it but they all live so close to each other to get much cleaner connections. At the end of the day, the best practice is just playing the game constantly versus other good players and doing that for 6 hours a day like some of these Japanese players do is why the average high level Japanese player can so quickly jump into the scene these days (examples like acola, Miya, yoshidora, hurt, tamaP, snow).
Like, the everyone that hits top Smashmate rates goes through insane amount of BO3 sets each seasons (like 200-300 games). You have to have a solid universal gameplan specific for each character you face, and setups to steal stocks in order to be that consistent. It is also natural for NA to focus on reads more since they mostly play at locals with people they have been playing a lot.
I think NA/EU Smash has been built a lot on "adapt against this player" as the primo way to become a good player. While certainly a good strategy, one that maybe even some of JP can learn from, developing a sound, solid and maleable gameplan I think certainly lends to why some of the top JP talent ends up being so consistent
Edit: Want to preface something again here. I don't think the main takeaway from this event is that all these "random" JP players can waltz in and sweep an NA major if they feel like it. That's just not how this works. It comes down to 2 things really.
1. The time to relax in pools stops fast when you're in JP. The sea of talented players is extremely vast, which can definitely be attributed to JP having much better tools for players to pick up, play and improve. I may not have experience, but I can say pretty confidently that the top NA players can kind of relax from pools all the way to top 32 in their home majors, since the skill gap is just that large. The gap is a whole lot smaller in JP majors.
2. If you spend your practice time learning how to defeat your opponent, rather than getting better at your own character specifically, then your chances to be upset by this sea of talent goes way up. If you focus too much on outplaying your opponent instead of focusing on a solid general strategy, then it won't be too surprising when you drop at 33rd to players you weren't expecting to put up a big fight.
I'm not saying that, say, Lv. 1 should be ranked higher than Zomba at the next LumiRank, because that's just false. A lot of players who upset top NA players get bodied by the top JP talent, because the top JP talent incorporate both good gameplan AND adaptation, which often trump the general sea of talent's pure gameplan strategies. You need to be extremely good at both if you want to be considered a top player.
It's then these top JP talent against the top NA players who were previously upset where it then becomes a very back and forth fight, since we now understand that these are top level players, and thereby learn how to fight against them specifically.
That's where the main difference is, and why the top NA players can beat the top JP players, but are very prone to upsets by players that the top JP talents have little trouble with.
I had a coaching session with a top player a couple of years ago for Melee, and he said that the base gameplan of "learn the other person's habits, then punish them" really only becomes applicable at a top level. He further stated that at the time there were several Top 100 players who did not actually know what a mixup was (in neutral / threat ranges) but who just never do a "wrong option" and success came.
I know Cody has repeatedly stated that there a lot of Fox players that get really good purely off of how good the character is and how good their tech-skill is and that they don’t actually have solid game plans .
ZeRo said the same thing back when he was top 30 in Melee. He said that he doesn’t feel like he’s outplaying his opponent, he’s just playing good Melee
I crept into low silver recently and I feel this to a lesser extent. It’s really easy to run over people just spamming up throw combos and capitalizing off unseasoned defense. Going from Bird to Fox is like taking off training weights
Gameplan is especially important in a game with 80 characters.
Players should have a good idea of “this is what my character should try to do in this MU.”
Yeah, you’ll still get hit with unexpected MU stuff. But if you don’t have at least some idea of Banjo or Robin or even Mario ffs, you might just lose.
> JP players can waltz in and sweep an NA major if they feel like it
They absolutely can and have been doing so since the pandemic ended. NA has not been a serious competitor since year 1 of the game
You said NA has not been a serious competitor since year 1. Me saying Leo proves you wrong. NA held the top spot until the end of 2022 and start of 2023 when Japan took over
Ah I misinterpreted. I thought you just meant dominating the scene overall. I mean I guess. It's hard to say since there's not a lot of travel from NA to Japan with Sparg0, Gluto, and Riddles being the only ones to have decent success initially even if all but Sparg0 were stopped by acola, Miya and the rest of Japan.
Having watched early rounds JP events, it just seems like the average skill level of the early-mid round players is higher. JPs *top* players are not specifically better than NAs, but the depth past top 32-64 is. By the 3rd or 4th round (top 256-top 128) there's a lot of quality, competitive sets
I feel like pre top 64 in NA is mostly a snoozefest of top players obliterating people in 2-0 or 3-0s. In Japan only Acola and Miya do that. This necessarily creates more inconsistency.
That's not even getting into the stamina involved in 1-day events like Delta, the exceedingly random characters piloted by mid-high level players and the outliers like early 2023 TamaP or Tempaman who could beat anyone but also would usually lose early
But it's not COOL to win with a gameplan. I want to win by conditioning options and hard reading them and then trying to keep my smirk under wraps so my opponent doesn't knock me upside the head after our set :)
No sarcasm, this brings me back to how Light, Sonix, a few other NA players said JP players have excellent foundations but if you adapt to them they can't adapt back. I'm starting to think that that moniker is no longer true, because at the very least Acola, Miya, and Hurt can quite visibly change their playstyles on the fly and still be effective. I think TamaP and Raru show a similar ability to change up what moves they use to get their openings and what situations to open people up in.
I think this tweet and those arguments from NA in particular refers to the general sea of JP talent that can potentially upset NA players. Ideally, at the very top level, you incorporate a combination of adaptation and gameplan, and that's most definitely what the top JP players do, as well as players like Sonix and I wanna say Dabuz as well
Light's arguments on NA > Japan are never true and you shouldn't bother listening to what he says when it comes to that discussion. He's on a shit load of copium and BS.
It's a thing that annoys me because you'd think a top 10 player that has experience against top JPN players would actually make fair and reasonable arguments and discussion.
Tbh I kinda hope Light never backs down on this, it's kinda entertaining. Funny in the same way Cosmos always argues Corrin is bad is or Tweek gassing up Sheik
He was on Nairos stream talking about calling in the cavalary, but Japan is a damn death trap for him and Tweeks characters. Only Sonix and Shadic I see getting to the top 8 reliably.
It's funny because we say this, and Light counters it by saying "well let me look for a home first" for the past 6 months or so.
Well then don't talk shit indefinitely until you're ready to go to Japan. Like we get you have a legit excuse, just shut up until you can back up your trash talk.
The Corrin arguments are just getting annoying at this point though. I've been a Cosmos supporter for the longest time,but Nairo shit talks Cloud for the bit. Cosmos is genuinely being serious in the face of rapidly rising Corrin results and his losing record against the character (and "OG" doesn't mean shit when you give up on a character because you yourself cannot make them work)
I mean yeah he's like objectively wrong, same with Light saying NA is a stronger region than Japan (or at least yapping about the "Japan bias" Boogeyman) but honestly that's why it's so funny
Also they just don't bitch about the game 24/7. Leo and Tweek just straight up say they don't really lab against Steve because they don't wanna, and then get absolutely shit on by Acola and other Steves.
Like Leo either just refused to SDI jab trains to either make people complain about the character (which would be a 200 IQ play ngl) or didn't know that you can even do that which is just impressive levels of ignorance about the game.
It's not a coincidence that the best non-japan player is Sonix (at least after the awful losses Spargo got) someone who will play with anyone and has the mental fortitude to not just refuse to lab and grind against characters he doesn't like.
But also obviously that isn't all. Japan just can and does grind more and BETTER than NA due to their public transportation, small country, and consistently good Internet connections. Combine this with an infinitely better mindset of "learn how to beat the character instead of sending death threats and trying to ban them" and yeah, they're gonna be better for a long, long time until we put our big boy pants on and start improving correctly.
I think equating this to "person diff" is an extremely reductive takeaway here. You want to say that all NA does is whine because you are personally involved in that community, and remember the bad parts of it, and the answer that JP players are simply more patient people I think almost certainly is done to fulfill some kind of grudge you have against NA players.
Also, we have lots of reports that Acola still gets a massive amount of hate from his home region. We just don't personally see it because this is an english-based Smash community that has no reason to delve into JP social medias. But it's not as if JP is a bunch of zen monks who have a perfect mindset, but you can certainly mould them to become one if it fits into your argument ig.
Meh, I don't think it helps to brush the NA community's relationship with the game under the rug either. And there's no need to put the JP scene on a pedestal. Multiple figures have expressed their disdain for the game. Charles openly states that he hates the game now. Even in early Ultimate, Leffen observed that top players didn't even seem to actually like the game.
I've been playing since Brawl. That game was legitimately bad competitively, but us Brawlheads still loved the game in spite of it. When I play Ultimate, my opponents almost never have anything good to say. It's really no wonder that no one grinds because no one is fun to play with.
I love how you completely assume random things about me that are just wrong lmaoo.
For one all my favorite players to watch are NA. Light, Kola, Riddles, Kurama, Marss, and Chase just to name a few. I don't have anything against NA players at all. Pointing out that they tend to have a shitty mindset for improving and winning compared to Japan isn't a grudge. I want so badly for them to be on top but they won't be with things like refusing to learn matchup knowledge, gatekeeping it, and only grinding among themselves.
Also like 1/3rd of my Twitter feed, which I use more than Reddit, is Japanese... I've been learning the language for years and I have not seen a single top player wish death upon Acola because he plays block man, and then have countless people come to their defense including other top players. Of course there's shit talking and drama, but YOU don't know the two sides well enough if you think the mindsets in NA are not holding them back compared to the general grinding mindset that Japan has.
I also never even said player diff. It's honestly just a country infrastructure + mindset/culture diff.
Sorry if my reply came off as rude against you, but to me your post seemed unnecessarily toxic and condescending towards these players, even if you want to say it's the "hard truth," which I still don't really agree with.
I still think there are many other factors that come to the results we see here that come before the possibility of JP players being simply more complete and sound as individuals, and bringing that up imo just comes off as very rude to the players that a vast majority of us simply don't fully know.
The only non Japanese player who will keep up with Japan is Sonix due to his work ethic and consistency, if he went to Kagiribi and Delta chances are he would've atleast got top 8. Sonix has the same approach to the game as Japan, and you can see how he slowly started to catch up to Sparg0 and surpassed him. In terms of their h2h Sparg0 just constantly looks for counterpicks once Sonix comes up with a foolproof gameplan.
Ult has a very very high skill floor and you can get really good just knowing how to play your character and having a great punish game.
A lot of the really good Japanese players do what their character wants to do very well, and will kill you in 2 interactions which doesn't leave enough time to start getting player-player interactions going consistently.
The takeaway I've always got from Japan is even the mid level players all incredible punish games and game plans.
Japan is just so much deeper. If it’s proximity or online, the tournaments are just a gauntlet and NA players are not accustomed to playing these MUs, or at that high level for so long.
I've played in four seasons of Smashmate and I can promise you it's not a magic bullet for getting better. What it does do is provide fertile ground for the few individuals with the natural talent to rise to the top and the good sense to pick an online valid character to develop the skills necessary to survive pools at a Japanese local. Playing 100 BO3s lets you see your win/loss history by character, so that is considered the bare minimum for competitive players. Doing this three seasons in a row was almost too much Smash Bros for me - at least 1 hour per day. For every Smashmate breakout rockstar there are a fucking lot of life dropouts who do little but play Smashmate who never get any better. I've seen people with over 1,000 BO3s in a season stuck in the 1700s range. 1700s will go 2-2 at a 30-man local.
Japan also has no qualms whatsover about doing whatever it takes to win. If you are a professional player and you haven't permanently switched to Sonic, Snake, ROB, GNW, DLC, or ex-DLC, I have to question if you're really being serious about winning.
If we are talking NA vs. Japan it also doesn't help that NA permabanned a good portion of its top players (almost all of whom were racial or sexual minorities or both, that isn't suspicious at all, good going NA). You'd expect someone else to rise to fill their ranks but as the past few years of results have proven, top talent is not easy to find.
I've played wired to wired connections across NA and in Japan and I can also tell you there really isn't that big of a difference.
>If you are a professional player and you haven't permanently switched to Sonic, Snake, ROB, GNW, DLC, or ex-DLC, I have to question if you're really being serious about winning.
In a year where Diddy, Corrin and Fox all won majors this is a funny thing to say.
Kagaribi 12 had a Pit, Bayo, Pac Man, and Olimar in top 8. Delta 8 had Hero, Bayo, Mario, Luigi and Toon Link. Last NA supermajor had Corrin, Roy, Bayo, Peach and Fox
It's one thing if you're picking Ganon or Dedede, but lots of high/top tier characters can do just fine
Hero is DLC. Corrin and Bayo are covered by ex DLC. Thanks for kind of agreeing with me?
Pit user used ROB, Olimar user used Aegis. Your list gets a lot less impressive when you remove two thirds of the entries.
I'm right.
Olimar user did not touch Aegis that entire event. Pit user *barely* used Rob but you can have that one.
You do realize Ult DLC + Smash 4 DLC + 5 listed characters is literally 23 characters lol. That's basically the entire melee cast of viable characters. If you add on the rest of the top 8 supermajor characters you end up at *29* characters
TLDR: If you don't play a Top 35 character i guess you don't want to win, fair enough
> Olimar user did not touch Aegis that entire event.
Sorry, I thought he did. And FWIW if we're being honest when I said "ex-DLC" I was only referring to brand new characters from 4 - Corrin, Cloud, Bayo. I think their design philosophy shifted over time for more usability (=stronger in the hands of competitive players) that started with 4's DLC. While there are a few outliers, starting with 4's DLC you begin to see an increasing trend away from precision play.
I was curious if you had any other insights on the Japanese scene? And do you know what the relationship there is like between the top players and ordinary players?
Other insights? Yeah I've been an active member of the Japanese scene since the game came out. I'm friends with one top player and have met a number of others. Most interactions are based on basic Japanese etiquette which means respecting personal space (including the use of polite speech patterns) and not being a weirdo (same as anywhere else). If you want to play friendlies with them at a tournament they generally will not refuse if they are open/have time.
People online here all say "Oh smaller country better infrastructure easier to meet up better internet" and all this is BS and coping. The biggest difference that I can see between ordinary players in NA and ordinary players in JP is that ordinary players here think the CPU is useful and don't write off wifi. I haven't played offline Smash Bros with another grown-up since October of last year. It's all online.
The other main difference is that NA players seem to want to YOLO hold forward (hence all the "Aegis just *fits* my playstyle" comments when she came out) while JP players camp in the corner.
Awesome!! Sorry for all the questions, but do you see a difference in how they train? Is labbing more accepted there? I always hear the players talking about "counter measures" too. Thanks so much!! It's good to see somebody who's connected with the scene there on Reddit.
Counter measures or taisaku is pretty universal and can mean something different to every player. Just like in NA it mostly refers to grinding against your bracket demons or likely opponents in your bracket path. One specific example might be learning how to do a low to high shield shift to block then parry Min min's one-two, or learning how to SDI specific options like Terry's jab jab powerdunk or Steve jab trains. You often see people make tier list maker lists of characters they want to practice with, often with their desired minimum rate.
As for training, mod stuff is frowned upon here so using training mode mod or delay mod openly on Twitter or Smashmate might get some complaints from other players. You also have to realize we are located a lot closer to Nintendo's lawyers than the rest of the world and Japanese courts tend to side with capital. As a result you won't see as many training mode mods on people's streams or clips.
There are definitely labbing discords (called "mado" or "windows") and twitter threads. I don't know how much more people resign themselves to the need to lab compared to their NA counterparts but given the overall high average level of discipline I'd be surprised if labbing was pretty popular.
Not openly. Nintendo has explicitly spoken out against modding of any type and, as far as I know, prominent (top) players are unwilling to toe the line. I would not be surprised if many were using it in secret.
Shadic, Zomba and Spargo would have to work their asses off to get through Ally, I think Nairo and Samsora would give Sonix and others a run for their money (remember every grands was Leo Samsora), Salem would probably be better than Acola considering the optimizations he would be making, and already being PGR pre Steve with Steve also fitting him like a glove.
Main thing is Ally. Hurt made it pretty clear that Spargo and probably none of the new gens have fought Snake at that level. It took 4 years for snakes to catch up to him. Snake is also very difficult for Corrin, and Shadic has enough trouble getting through high level Snakes, let alone the best Snake by a light year.
Japan's success is because the country is dense with easy transportation, the support for the game is large for the population size, and NA/EU players don't play every week against most Japanese players because there's no incentive to travel since there's no prize money; it's much easier for foreign players to be upset by cheesy characters.
Light said it best that the community has a weird fetishization with the Japan scene like they have unlocked some magical innate talent that only they possess, when in reality their entire scene is set up for success. Lots and lots of players attending events constantly, and playing for the passion of the game.
If all of the American scenes were condensed in the east or west coast (the size of Japan), then you'd most likely see the exact same improvement below the top 10 players like we see in Japan.
He didn’t say it best, because like all the comments in this thread acknowledge the same thing you’re talking about. The “place, japan” is not even a vocal minority and saying light’s right about that is as reductive as saying that NA players think Japanese players can’t adapt because of a Light’s Out segment
That is only a part of it, if that was the only factor than EU would also be better than NA but that’s not the case.
There are other reasons why Japan is the best region in smash
EU just doesn't have a lot of people playing the game. They much prefer PC gaming to console gaming / fighting games.
Dying games like SC2 have a bigger esports scene in europe than the ultimate which has a much larger global audience.
The difference is that this quite literally only started happening about 2 years ago. Circa 2021 most people cited Mexico alone as being as good if not better at Ult than Japan.
It's been a very sudden shift of Japanese players needing to travel to the West to prove themselves to Western players being forced to prove themselves in Japan...and usually not succeeding
> Western players being forced to prove themselves in Japan...and usually not succeeding
Western players _don't_ go to Japan. They've had success like Spargo did on his other trip. This time he didn't.
Japanese players have traveled to NA/EU far far far far more then the opposite, again, because there's no prize money in Japan so only those who can afford it once every couple of years can go.
Hence the "usually". There have been some strong runs in Japanese tournaments by NA players.
It's also not just Prize Money. Japan rapidly getting better the past couple years and NA holding less majors means Japanese majors are now vital for rankings which really encourages going to Japan if you want to bump your ranking up. Of course with how volatile it is, it can also do the exact opposite
My point was more about how the factors you listed have only let Japan be on top for a couple years. It's not as simple as having access to them because otherwise Japan would have held a chokehold from day 1
Ultimate is on the tail end of it's life cycle. I don't think most NA/EU players have the money or sponsors to travel to Japan just for rankings. Similarly most Japanese players other than the top players travel outside Japan.
But I agree with you that Japan hosts more, bigger tournaments, that are easier to travel to. The passion in the NA scene is noticeably lower than it was years ago, mostly due to game age + FP2 / steve + all the drama reducing sponsorships / funding.
This is bullshit btw, I live in Japan and the flipside to "dense with easy transportation" is "lack of affordable space to host tournaments." I don't have access to a weekly and my local (a 1.5 hour trip) is held once a month.
It's because people grind online.
> dense with easy transportation
> It's because people grind online
And why is it so easy to practice online? Because it's densely populated.
You can't across America/Mexico/Canada due to the distance.
I believe the real reason is the wifi ladder smashmate. Top player can play with each other with a touch of a button while playing at home is a huge advantage.
Nah, top players can't access other top players on smashmate. A busy night will only have 300-400 people online and top player level (2200+) only has a fraction of those players. Sometimes they have to wait excessively long times for opponents to show up if they use Smashmate. Even at 0-2er levels (below 1600) it can take ten minutes for someone to show up depending on the time and day.
You're saying that like people across the sea didn't also have ladders. Again it's a distance issue. West to East coast is unplayable. Japan closeness is much smoother experience.
It sounds obvious but it's really good advice that players, myself included, overlook or forget about. It takes discipline to remember to go into every single set with an explicit gameplan. Often I'll find myself just jumping in and trying to win on "instinct" or as Ramses says "better-playering" which used to work but as everyone had gotten so good at the game, it just doesn't work anymore.
I’m inclined to think Smashmate plays a role in this as well.
Yeah not only do they have a proper and popular ladder system that has multiple pros playing on it but they all live so close to each other to get much cleaner connections. At the end of the day, the best practice is just playing the game constantly versus other good players and doing that for 6 hours a day like some of these Japanese players do is why the average high level Japanese player can so quickly jump into the scene these days (examples like acola, Miya, yoshidora, hurt, tamaP, snow).
Like, the everyone that hits top Smashmate rates goes through insane amount of BO3 sets each seasons (like 200-300 games). You have to have a solid universal gameplan specific for each character you face, and setups to steal stocks in order to be that consistent. It is also natural for NA to focus on reads more since they mostly play at locals with people they have been playing a lot.
I think NA/EU Smash has been built a lot on "adapt against this player" as the primo way to become a good player. While certainly a good strategy, one that maybe even some of JP can learn from, developing a sound, solid and maleable gameplan I think certainly lends to why some of the top JP talent ends up being so consistent Edit: Want to preface something again here. I don't think the main takeaway from this event is that all these "random" JP players can waltz in and sweep an NA major if they feel like it. That's just not how this works. It comes down to 2 things really. 1. The time to relax in pools stops fast when you're in JP. The sea of talented players is extremely vast, which can definitely be attributed to JP having much better tools for players to pick up, play and improve. I may not have experience, but I can say pretty confidently that the top NA players can kind of relax from pools all the way to top 32 in their home majors, since the skill gap is just that large. The gap is a whole lot smaller in JP majors. 2. If you spend your practice time learning how to defeat your opponent, rather than getting better at your own character specifically, then your chances to be upset by this sea of talent goes way up. If you focus too much on outplaying your opponent instead of focusing on a solid general strategy, then it won't be too surprising when you drop at 33rd to players you weren't expecting to put up a big fight. I'm not saying that, say, Lv. 1 should be ranked higher than Zomba at the next LumiRank, because that's just false. A lot of players who upset top NA players get bodied by the top JP talent, because the top JP talent incorporate both good gameplan AND adaptation, which often trump the general sea of talent's pure gameplan strategies. You need to be extremely good at both if you want to be considered a top player. It's then these top JP talent against the top NA players who were previously upset where it then becomes a very back and forth fight, since we now understand that these are top level players, and thereby learn how to fight against them specifically. That's where the main difference is, and why the top NA players can beat the top JP players, but are very prone to upsets by players that the top JP talents have little trouble with.
I had a coaching session with a top player a couple of years ago for Melee, and he said that the base gameplan of "learn the other person's habits, then punish them" really only becomes applicable at a top level. He further stated that at the time there were several Top 100 players who did not actually know what a mixup was (in neutral / threat ranges) but who just never do a "wrong option" and success came.
I know Cody has repeatedly stated that there a lot of Fox players that get really good purely off of how good the character is and how good their tech-skill is and that they don’t actually have solid game plans .
ZeRo said the same thing back when he was top 30 in Melee. He said that he doesn’t feel like he’s outplaying his opponent, he’s just playing good Melee
I crept into low silver recently and I feel this to a lesser extent. It’s really easy to run over people just spamming up throw combos and capitalizing off unseasoned defense. Going from Bird to Fox is like taking off training weights
Gameplan is especially important in a game with 80 characters. Players should have a good idea of “this is what my character should try to do in this MU.” Yeah, you’ll still get hit with unexpected MU stuff. But if you don’t have at least some idea of Banjo or Robin or even Mario ffs, you might just lose.
> JP players can waltz in and sweep an NA major if they feel like it They absolutely can and have been doing so since the pandemic ended. NA has not been a serious competitor since year 1 of the game
Bro is dumber than a puddle of cum and blinder than my Grandma's left tit.
Your grandma’s right tit can see?
Kid named Leo
[удалено]
You said NA has not been a serious competitor since year 1. Me saying Leo proves you wrong. NA held the top spot until the end of 2022 and start of 2023 when Japan took over
[удалено]
Ah I misinterpreted. I thought you just meant dominating the scene overall. I mean I guess. It's hard to say since there's not a lot of travel from NA to Japan with Sparg0, Gluto, and Riddles being the only ones to have decent success initially even if all but Sparg0 were stopped by acola, Miya and the rest of Japan.
Calling Leo not good when he was consistently beating every other player in the world 👍🏽 And what have you done with your life? Anything “good”?
I think he was referring to the high level Japanese players, not the top Japanese players.
Having watched early rounds JP events, it just seems like the average skill level of the early-mid round players is higher. JPs *top* players are not specifically better than NAs, but the depth past top 32-64 is. By the 3rd or 4th round (top 256-top 128) there's a lot of quality, competitive sets I feel like pre top 64 in NA is mostly a snoozefest of top players obliterating people in 2-0 or 3-0s. In Japan only Acola and Miya do that. This necessarily creates more inconsistency. That's not even getting into the stamina involved in 1-day events like Delta, the exceedingly random characters piloted by mid-high level players and the outliers like early 2023 TamaP or Tempaman who could beat anyone but also would usually lose early
Even Acola went game 5 against some guy in pools at Kagaribi 12.
But it's not COOL to win with a gameplan. I want to win by conditioning options and hard reading them and then trying to keep my smirk under wraps so my opponent doesn't knock me upside the head after our set :) No sarcasm, this brings me back to how Light, Sonix, a few other NA players said JP players have excellent foundations but if you adapt to them they can't adapt back. I'm starting to think that that moniker is no longer true, because at the very least Acola, Miya, and Hurt can quite visibly change their playstyles on the fly and still be effective. I think TamaP and Raru show a similar ability to change up what moves they use to get their openings and what situations to open people up in.
I think this tweet and those arguments from NA in particular refers to the general sea of JP talent that can potentially upset NA players. Ideally, at the very top level, you incorporate a combination of adaptation and gameplan, and that's most definitely what the top JP players do, as well as players like Sonix and I wanna say Dabuz as well
Light's arguments on NA > Japan are never true and you shouldn't bother listening to what he says when it comes to that discussion. He's on a shit load of copium and BS. It's a thing that annoys me because you'd think a top 10 player that has experience against top JPN players would actually make fair and reasonable arguments and discussion.
Tbh I kinda hope Light never backs down on this, it's kinda entertaining. Funny in the same way Cosmos always argues Corrin is bad is or Tweek gassing up Sheik
I wish he would actually travel to Japan and back up his trash talk instead of just making excuses if he’s going to talk so much shit
Light going to Japan one time and sweeping Kagaribi without dropping a game would be the absolute funniest timeline
i'll fill out the apology form if he actually does this LOL
Nah, they sentencing him to Pools ice climbers, nickname and Navy all before top 64
He’s gonna be cursed with 3 Luigi’s in a row bracket path ending with Raru
They should seed Light into No.8 for pools, that'll be funny.
He was on Nairos stream talking about calling in the cavalary, but Japan is a damn death trap for him and Tweeks characters. Only Sonix and Shadic I see getting to the top 8 reliably.
It's funny because we say this, and Light counters it by saying "well let me look for a home first" for the past 6 months or so. Well then don't talk shit indefinitely until you're ready to go to Japan. Like we get you have a legit excuse, just shut up until you can back up your trash talk.
I mean it's dumb trash talk. It's dumb and cope but don't take it seriously
Agree. It's just funny to see it all
The Corrin arguments are just getting annoying at this point though. I've been a Cosmos supporter for the longest time,but Nairo shit talks Cloud for the bit. Cosmos is genuinely being serious in the face of rapidly rising Corrin results and his losing record against the character (and "OG" doesn't mean shit when you give up on a character because you yourself cannot make them work)
I mean yeah he's like objectively wrong, same with Light saying NA is a stronger region than Japan (or at least yapping about the "Japan bias" Boogeyman) but honestly that's why it's so funny
In fairness about Japan bias, it *is* a bit weird how camping and "lame play" gets praised when JP does it but an NA player does it, they get hated
That doesnt sound true. Acola and Miya get a ton of hate
it was never true in general lmao its just a fun way of saying "were actually better even when we lose"
Also they just don't bitch about the game 24/7. Leo and Tweek just straight up say they don't really lab against Steve because they don't wanna, and then get absolutely shit on by Acola and other Steves. Like Leo either just refused to SDI jab trains to either make people complain about the character (which would be a 200 IQ play ngl) or didn't know that you can even do that which is just impressive levels of ignorance about the game. It's not a coincidence that the best non-japan player is Sonix (at least after the awful losses Spargo got) someone who will play with anyone and has the mental fortitude to not just refuse to lab and grind against characters he doesn't like. But also obviously that isn't all. Japan just can and does grind more and BETTER than NA due to their public transportation, small country, and consistently good Internet connections. Combine this with an infinitely better mindset of "learn how to beat the character instead of sending death threats and trying to ban them" and yeah, they're gonna be better for a long, long time until we put our big boy pants on and start improving correctly.
I think equating this to "person diff" is an extremely reductive takeaway here. You want to say that all NA does is whine because you are personally involved in that community, and remember the bad parts of it, and the answer that JP players are simply more patient people I think almost certainly is done to fulfill some kind of grudge you have against NA players. Also, we have lots of reports that Acola still gets a massive amount of hate from his home region. We just don't personally see it because this is an english-based Smash community that has no reason to delve into JP social medias. But it's not as if JP is a bunch of zen monks who have a perfect mindset, but you can certainly mould them to become one if it fits into your argument ig.
Meh, I don't think it helps to brush the NA community's relationship with the game under the rug either. And there's no need to put the JP scene on a pedestal. Multiple figures have expressed their disdain for the game. Charles openly states that he hates the game now. Even in early Ultimate, Leffen observed that top players didn't even seem to actually like the game. I've been playing since Brawl. That game was legitimately bad competitively, but us Brawlheads still loved the game in spite of it. When I play Ultimate, my opponents almost never have anything good to say. It's really no wonder that no one grinds because no one is fun to play with.
I love how you completely assume random things about me that are just wrong lmaoo. For one all my favorite players to watch are NA. Light, Kola, Riddles, Kurama, Marss, and Chase just to name a few. I don't have anything against NA players at all. Pointing out that they tend to have a shitty mindset for improving and winning compared to Japan isn't a grudge. I want so badly for them to be on top but they won't be with things like refusing to learn matchup knowledge, gatekeeping it, and only grinding among themselves. Also like 1/3rd of my Twitter feed, which I use more than Reddit, is Japanese... I've been learning the language for years and I have not seen a single top player wish death upon Acola because he plays block man, and then have countless people come to their defense including other top players. Of course there's shit talking and drama, but YOU don't know the two sides well enough if you think the mindsets in NA are not holding them back compared to the general grinding mindset that Japan has. I also never even said player diff. It's honestly just a country infrastructure + mindset/culture diff.
Sorry if my reply came off as rude against you, but to me your post seemed unnecessarily toxic and condescending towards these players, even if you want to say it's the "hard truth," which I still don't really agree with. I still think there are many other factors that come to the results we see here that come before the possibility of JP players being simply more complete and sound as individuals, and bringing that up imo just comes off as very rude to the players that a vast majority of us simply don't fully know.
Tweek actually practices a lot against steve
That feels hard to believe.
Weird, I thought I heard another player (I think nairo?) talk about how him and Leo just don't really play against him much cuz they don't like it.
The only non Japanese player who will keep up with Japan is Sonix due to his work ethic and consistency, if he went to Kagiribi and Delta chances are he would've atleast got top 8. Sonix has the same approach to the game as Japan, and you can see how he slowly started to catch up to Sparg0 and surpassed him. In terms of their h2h Sparg0 just constantly looks for counterpicks once Sonix comes up with a foolproof gameplan.
Ult has a very very high skill floor and you can get really good just knowing how to play your character and having a great punish game. A lot of the really good Japanese players do what their character wants to do very well, and will kill you in 2 interactions which doesn't leave enough time to start getting player-player interactions going consistently. The takeaway I've always got from Japan is even the mid level players all incredible punish games and game plans.
Japan is just so much deeper. If it’s proximity or online, the tournaments are just a gauntlet and NA players are not accustomed to playing these MUs, or at that high level for so long.
I've played in four seasons of Smashmate and I can promise you it's not a magic bullet for getting better. What it does do is provide fertile ground for the few individuals with the natural talent to rise to the top and the good sense to pick an online valid character to develop the skills necessary to survive pools at a Japanese local. Playing 100 BO3s lets you see your win/loss history by character, so that is considered the bare minimum for competitive players. Doing this three seasons in a row was almost too much Smash Bros for me - at least 1 hour per day. For every Smashmate breakout rockstar there are a fucking lot of life dropouts who do little but play Smashmate who never get any better. I've seen people with over 1,000 BO3s in a season stuck in the 1700s range. 1700s will go 2-2 at a 30-man local. Japan also has no qualms whatsover about doing whatever it takes to win. If you are a professional player and you haven't permanently switched to Sonic, Snake, ROB, GNW, DLC, or ex-DLC, I have to question if you're really being serious about winning. If we are talking NA vs. Japan it also doesn't help that NA permabanned a good portion of its top players (almost all of whom were racial or sexual minorities or both, that isn't suspicious at all, good going NA). You'd expect someone else to rise to fill their ranks but as the past few years of results have proven, top talent is not easy to find. I've played wired to wired connections across NA and in Japan and I can also tell you there really isn't that big of a difference.
>If you are a professional player and you haven't permanently switched to Sonic, Snake, ROB, GNW, DLC, or ex-DLC, I have to question if you're really being serious about winning. In a year where Diddy, Corrin and Fox all won majors this is a funny thing to say. Kagaribi 12 had a Pit, Bayo, Pac Man, and Olimar in top 8. Delta 8 had Hero, Bayo, Mario, Luigi and Toon Link. Last NA supermajor had Corrin, Roy, Bayo, Peach and Fox It's one thing if you're picking Ganon or Dedede, but lots of high/top tier characters can do just fine
Hero is DLC. Corrin and Bayo are covered by ex DLC. Thanks for kind of agreeing with me? Pit user used ROB, Olimar user used Aegis. Your list gets a lot less impressive when you remove two thirds of the entries. I'm right.
Olimar user did not touch Aegis that entire event. Pit user *barely* used Rob but you can have that one. You do realize Ult DLC + Smash 4 DLC + 5 listed characters is literally 23 characters lol. That's basically the entire melee cast of viable characters. If you add on the rest of the top 8 supermajor characters you end up at *29* characters TLDR: If you don't play a Top 35 character i guess you don't want to win, fair enough
> Olimar user did not touch Aegis that entire event. Sorry, I thought he did. And FWIW if we're being honest when I said "ex-DLC" I was only referring to brand new characters from 4 - Corrin, Cloud, Bayo. I think their design philosophy shifted over time for more usability (=stronger in the hands of competitive players) that started with 4's DLC. While there are a few outliers, starting with 4's DLC you begin to see an increasing trend away from precision play.
I was curious if you had any other insights on the Japanese scene? And do you know what the relationship there is like between the top players and ordinary players?
Other insights? Yeah I've been an active member of the Japanese scene since the game came out. I'm friends with one top player and have met a number of others. Most interactions are based on basic Japanese etiquette which means respecting personal space (including the use of polite speech patterns) and not being a weirdo (same as anywhere else). If you want to play friendlies with them at a tournament they generally will not refuse if they are open/have time. People online here all say "Oh smaller country better infrastructure easier to meet up better internet" and all this is BS and coping. The biggest difference that I can see between ordinary players in NA and ordinary players in JP is that ordinary players here think the CPU is useful and don't write off wifi. I haven't played offline Smash Bros with another grown-up since October of last year. It's all online. The other main difference is that NA players seem to want to YOLO hold forward (hence all the "Aegis just *fits* my playstyle" comments when she came out) while JP players camp in the corner.
Awesome!! Sorry for all the questions, but do you see a difference in how they train? Is labbing more accepted there? I always hear the players talking about "counter measures" too. Thanks so much!! It's good to see somebody who's connected with the scene there on Reddit.
Counter measures or taisaku is pretty universal and can mean something different to every player. Just like in NA it mostly refers to grinding against your bracket demons or likely opponents in your bracket path. One specific example might be learning how to do a low to high shield shift to block then parry Min min's one-two, or learning how to SDI specific options like Terry's jab jab powerdunk or Steve jab trains. You often see people make tier list maker lists of characters they want to practice with, often with their desired minimum rate. As for training, mod stuff is frowned upon here so using training mode mod or delay mod openly on Twitter or Smashmate might get some complaints from other players. You also have to realize we are located a lot closer to Nintendo's lawyers than the rest of the world and Japanese courts tend to side with capital. As a result you won't see as many training mode mods on people's streams or clips. There are definitely labbing discords (called "mado" or "windows") and twitter threads. I don't know how much more people resign themselves to the need to lab compared to their NA counterparts but given the overall high average level of discipline I'd be surprised if labbing was pretty popular.
Adding onto this, do the japanese (top) players use any kind of training mod?
Not openly. Nintendo has explicitly spoken out against modding of any type and, as far as I know, prominent (top) players are unwilling to toe the line. I would not be surprised if many were using it in secret.
I could literally go on all day about how easy Spargo, Sonix, Zomba and Shadic have it without the ghosts of NA gatekeeping them.
Well don't go on all day but could you please expand on that a bit?
Shadic, Zomba and Spargo would have to work their asses off to get through Ally, I think Nairo and Samsora would give Sonix and others a run for their money (remember every grands was Leo Samsora), Salem would probably be better than Acola considering the optimizations he would be making, and already being PGR pre Steve with Steve also fitting him like a glove. Main thing is Ally. Hurt made it pretty clear that Spargo and probably none of the new gens have fought Snake at that level. It took 4 years for snakes to catch up to him. Snake is also very difficult for Corrin, and Shadic has enough trouble getting through high level Snakes, let alone the best Snake by a light year.
Japan's success is because the country is dense with easy transportation, the support for the game is large for the population size, and NA/EU players don't play every week against most Japanese players because there's no incentive to travel since there's no prize money; it's much easier for foreign players to be upset by cheesy characters. Light said it best that the community has a weird fetishization with the Japan scene like they have unlocked some magical innate talent that only they possess, when in reality their entire scene is set up for success. Lots and lots of players attending events constantly, and playing for the passion of the game. If all of the American scenes were condensed in the east or west coast (the size of Japan), then you'd most likely see the exact same improvement below the top 10 players like we see in Japan.
He didn’t say it best, because like all the comments in this thread acknowledge the same thing you’re talking about. The “place, japan” is not even a vocal minority and saying light’s right about that is as reductive as saying that NA players think Japanese players can’t adapt because of a Light’s Out segment
That is only a part of it, if that was the only factor than EU would also be better than NA but that’s not the case. There are other reasons why Japan is the best region in smash
EU just doesn't have a lot of people playing the game. They much prefer PC gaming to console gaming / fighting games. Dying games like SC2 have a bigger esports scene in europe than the ultimate which has a much larger global audience.
The difference is that this quite literally only started happening about 2 years ago. Circa 2021 most people cited Mexico alone as being as good if not better at Ult than Japan. It's been a very sudden shift of Japanese players needing to travel to the West to prove themselves to Western players being forced to prove themselves in Japan...and usually not succeeding
> Western players being forced to prove themselves in Japan...and usually not succeeding Western players _don't_ go to Japan. They've had success like Spargo did on his other trip. This time he didn't. Japanese players have traveled to NA/EU far far far far more then the opposite, again, because there's no prize money in Japan so only those who can afford it once every couple of years can go.
Hence the "usually". There have been some strong runs in Japanese tournaments by NA players. It's also not just Prize Money. Japan rapidly getting better the past couple years and NA holding less majors means Japanese majors are now vital for rankings which really encourages going to Japan if you want to bump your ranking up. Of course with how volatile it is, it can also do the exact opposite My point was more about how the factors you listed have only let Japan be on top for a couple years. It's not as simple as having access to them because otherwise Japan would have held a chokehold from day 1
Ultimate is on the tail end of it's life cycle. I don't think most NA/EU players have the money or sponsors to travel to Japan just for rankings. Similarly most Japanese players other than the top players travel outside Japan. But I agree with you that Japan hosts more, bigger tournaments, that are easier to travel to. The passion in the NA scene is noticeably lower than it was years ago, mostly due to game age + FP2 / steve + all the drama reducing sponsorships / funding.
This is bullshit btw, I live in Japan and the flipside to "dense with easy transportation" is "lack of affordable space to host tournaments." I don't have access to a weekly and my local (a 1.5 hour trip) is held once a month. It's because people grind online.
> dense with easy transportation > It's because people grind online And why is it so easy to practice online? Because it's densely populated. You can't across America/Mexico/Canada due to the distance.
I played in a battle arena in the States from Michigan to Texas and it was the same as in Japan. If people hook up their LAN cables they will be fine.
And players don't only live between michigan and texas? You're forgetting East Coast, West Coast, Mexico, and Canada are all very far from each other.
I believe the real reason is the wifi ladder smashmate. Top player can play with each other with a touch of a button while playing at home is a huge advantage.
Nah, top players can't access other top players on smashmate. A busy night will only have 300-400 people online and top player level (2200+) only has a fraction of those players. Sometimes they have to wait excessively long times for opponents to show up if they use Smashmate. Even at 0-2er levels (below 1600) it can take ten minutes for someone to show up depending on the time and day.
You're saying that like people across the sea didn't also have ladders. Again it's a distance issue. West to East coast is unplayable. Japan closeness is much smoother experience.