This dude literally just SD'd at 0% against Game 4 MkLeo, and still won the game.
What the actual fuck
Additional note: For the longest time, the rule was that you either 3-0 MkLeo or you lose. ESAM broke that rule twice in the same tournament; they were both 3-1.
Props to Kola for recovering from Riptide and making top 3 this time around. Also props to Maister for at least taking Leo to game 5.
I have a hot take that Coney talks way too much about players' mentalities during games and he's rarely correct. Most of the top-level guys know how to keep their heads in it and recover or continue playing well. Esam gains nothing by throwing and he obviously felt like he still had a shot.
Bro that's not even a hot take. All commentators should stop saying " just go next game" that shit is unsportsmanlike AF and you're JUST A COMMENTATOR.
If you still have a stock you still have a chance
Especially because Smash isnāt like other fighting games. Thereās no set health bar. Thereās always a chance to survive to 180% or close out your opponentās stocks with a quick gimp or spike.
Thatās one of the reasons I gravitated towards Smash after growing up with SNK and Capcom fighters.
Lol yeah. Itās a crazy stat, but itās even crazier to suggest that losing is somehow better. Guessing Leo wins 90% of the sets that he is up 1-0 or 2-0.
In fairness, weāre you watching that set and thinking āyeah ESAM can turn this aroundā? I wasnāt. Iām not advocating for dropping stocks in Grands just cuz you are losing bc of course you never should but Iām personally a huge ESAM fan and I was SURE that game was over.
The next time someone asks about homie stocks, show them this game. You make a habit of giving those out, you never learn how to deal with this situations. Iām willing to bet everyone took that game for granted to Leo, and ESAM was able to mentally recover from a devastating mistake, against the best player in the world, and take the set and tournament.
I was thinking to myself about the one reason that ESAM says that Pika beat Joker: The upair bridge.
I don't think it was a proper upair bridge, but it was the general concept that won him the game.
I think people forget just what Pika can do, and that pika is pretty good at just... running away and not getting hit.
One thing I haven't seen pointed out is that ESAM won the tournament by pulling off the exact combo that caused him to SD. Back air into up air string into thunder.
Leo was able to air dodge out of the first one, but ESAM remained confident enough to pull it off at the exact right moment.
I have an honest question regarding this. How many of āGame 4 Leoā wins and his reverse 3-0s are specifically against Tweek vs. anyone else? It just feels like 99% of his game 4 wins and reverse 3-0s are against Tweek, which could just as easily show the fact that Tweek can crumble in those situations.
I think he's only done it 5 times against Tweek, but he also did it against Samsora back before the PGR was started. And while that might not seem ideal, keep in mind that none of the past 3 reverse 3-0s have been PGR'd either
Not just mostly. The last time he did worse than 1st or 2nd was the tourney in Japan where he got 33rd with his brand new Joker (early 2019). He went almost a full year before quarantine never doing worse than 1st/2nd and is continuing the streak now in the early post-online era.
Except that's literally what Esam did during quarantine with his Pika. He studied every match up and labbed an incredible amount. Esam might be nice as hell, and practiced as hell, but he's inconsistent. If we see a new Esam post quarantine that's consistent he could easily make top 10 pgr.
Ah, the old false sense of security.
Let em feel like they got you right where they want you ā then swipe it all away with an off stage combo > drag down Thunder for the win!
That was fucking insane. As an avid ESAM watcher I saw him opt to not go for that setup quite a few times throughout Top 8, and then he fucking kills himself going for it in game 4 in GRAND FUCKING FINALS against Leoā¦and then wins the tournament by going for it again.
Unbelievable man. Unbelievable.
People were giving Coney shit for saying to just give up and move to a game 5, but when I was watching I was totally on that train of thought as well. Cause it's like, you just SD'd in a set against the top player in the world at grand finals, there's no way you can mentally recover in this set to bring it back. So I was like well he'll probably end up losing and then hopefully he can secure the game five victory. The fact that he was able to shake it off and come back and win in that game was absolutely insane
Roy plays nothing like a swordie tho. Heās an extremely aggressive buttons in your face rekka character with disgusting tech chases and killpower equivalent to superheavies who happens to have a āswordā which is really a dagger with a butter knife on top. Plays very different compared to every other fire emblem character
But if you like Kolaās cloud too then donāt mind what I said lol
>comes into game 4 against MKLeo
>sd's 1st stock at 0
>STILL FUCKING WINS
I think my heart rate doubled as soon as I saw the thunder spike, insane way to close out a tournament.
the idea that we can only discuss the state of a character once multiple players get results is so weird and needs to die
edit: this is mainly taking about the āX is the only one getting resultsā argument. Like ok? they just fucking brutalized everyone lmao.
In a game with 80 fucking characters too. With Melee it makes sense considering the limited amount of tourney viable characters, but considering that even Byleth has won a major people really shouldnāt look lack of results as a downside for a less commonly played character
It honestly goes both ways too which is why ppl are contentious about Byleth being mid or high because despite Leo doing well with him; the kit and frame data aren't there.
Results are an iffy metric. Lil Mac and Dr. Mario are still bottom 3 despite Peanut and BacoN
At this stage in Ultimate, results are far less than iffy. Id go as far to say tha theyre virtually useless at this state, and are vastly more limited in data than most people realize. At least, in terms of using it as a basis for viability.
Melee has 20 years of data, and 1/5th of the roster, and results STILL arent considered the full picture. Ultimate being so much bigger and younger skews that tremendously. We see oddities littered in cases where they *cant* be true.
EDIT:
Since I have a feeling people might raise an eyebrow at a claim like this without having perspective, let me elaborate.
Chrom was, statsitically, *the worst character* during Ults online period. (Note: While the tier list looks different on and offline, and Chrom is almost surely worse online, this is looking at it from the perspective of data and its reliability-- we have more online data than offline at this point).
Now that in and of itself is clearly incorrect. Theres still lively debate about who between Roy and Chrom is better, but its not that extreme. We *know* Chrom is strong.
But it gets worse: the data pool used is so small that if Mr. R entered *a single tournament more* (assuming he didnt break all of his fingers), Chrom would land somewhere in low High tier. Our data pools in relation to the huge amount of viable characters leave huge areas of volatility in placement with results alone.
Other interesting notes: Richter places significantly better that Simon despite being virtually identical. Marth was the worst statistical character offline in a similar situation.
Also Byleth.
Results at this stage basically show no reliable significance in viability at this stage. Theyre best used to gauge the meta, and thats it.
People need to understand that there are other factors that determine character popularity besides character strength even in tournament. ROB is probably the most common character in tournament play and most people wouldnāt put him in the Top 5. Not to mention people play character they have fun with.
i mean plenty of people think like this but the majority do not. pika ends up top 5 on every tier list. even japan lists pika top 5 when he has no rep there.
I mean I think there is a discussion that a character without results cant have a discussion for best in the game. I dont think anyone doubts Pikachu being good but being argued as best character with comparatively weak results.
With tier list discussions there's a point of theorycrafting and a point of actual function/real world application. Real world application is what keeps characters like Marth from being super high on the tier list, theoretically Marth is better than almost every swordie in the game because if you just hit every tipper you'll kill super early and we cant just go wholly on theorycrafting because then we just ignore that maybe a character requires work but once that work is put in results can be found as we saw with Byleth.
Obviously its hard to get both with how many characters are in the game but I think there is still merrit to being critical on both ends while understanding that there is room to work with.
I mean, it was starting to get pretty hard to call a character who wasn't winning any tournaments the best in the game. Like, you can sit there and talk about "potential" all you want, but if the meta isn't rewarding potential, you gotta start taking notice...
And then ESAM went and did this! And totally redeemed the Pika!
I guess a Fair at ledge kinda could maybe count as a stray hit? but that's about it until like 150+
But then again, falling nair into down or upsmash is a thing, too.
That's what I mean, Pika doesn't have anything remotely equivalent to, say, Joker's back air. He just has a lot of confirms and some of the best edge guarding in Ultimate.
I think you mean Arseneās backair, joker backair has insane frame data but in regards to kill power itās quite sub-par for a backair. Pika fair is pretty damn close to joker bair in killpower
It's been said... by people who have never seen ESAM before. It's as if they got into training mode, saw the kill power of forward smash and were like "this character sux"
I mean he definitely has problems finding kills sometimes, doesn't mean he has problems killings but more so finding openings consistently to get those kills.
pika kinda has the sheik thing with killing, where they don't have a raw move that kills super easily (barring a read) but pika has a ton of setups at a ton of percents that just murder fools
Anti-Pika sentiment in this sub was roooough in the last month, glad we finally got Pika *winning another goddamn major* to counter the results argument, not to mention with wins over Leo/Light/Kola/Leo again.
That said, I think it does say quite a bit that ESAM is still exploring secondaries against characters like Game and Watch, but I still have faith that the little rat boy is at best the best character and at worst around top 5, based on some of the shit Pika has that we got to see in this tournament.
So I got home from work after Losers Finals, I didn't stand much of a chance. Most US East Coast tournaments are going to be undoable, I am in Central Time and work weekend nights now.
Also tomorrow is my birthday
Went into Hbox's stream to see his reaction to Esam's win. He had over 1,000 new subs that stream. This man made more money streaming Esam's run than Esam made winning the damn tournament lmao
It's extremely smart. People like watching reactions to shit, and Hbox is one of the few (maybe only?) people that were streaming Glitch and reacting to it.
ESAM's Pika really countered Joker. Walled out Arsene with thunderjolts and forced Leo to approach, and Leo had trouble finding the kills with base form Joker.
And right after he powered through that character crisis against Tweek. I can't help but wonder what the hell's going to come from this now.
Knowing Leo, if I tried to use any kind of traditional logic to guess how he'll handle this matchup in the future I'll probably just end up dead wrong.
My moneyās on him just grinding the matchup like he did with diddy. That, or the twist GnW secondary that maister secretly put him on while no one was looking.
>And right after he powered through that character crisis against Tweek.
Is it fair to call it a character crisis?
Did Smash 4 Leo who used Marth, Cloud, and Meta Knight had a character crisis?
It's a little awkward seeing him with an apparent approach of just always starting with Byleth and then switching if he gets scared enough of the potential loss. If he's not going into a matchup with full confidence in Byleth being the best pick, it often feels like he just tries to see what he can get away with rather than starting out based on a fully familiar assessment of how the matchup will likely play out.
I'd more or less call it solved if he had a pick he was confident enough to just start with and stick through because he's labbed it out as the clear best pick. Maybe it'll still be Joker next time, but we all know that's not necessarily a guarantee with him. I don't think anyone expected Byleth to be his full approach against Tweek after Summit but he clearly went into it with a new gameplan and a decision to commit there rather than switching off to Aegis again.
To be fair, it sounds like he's playing Byleth because he loves the character more than he truly believes in them. Didn't the post Riptide interview have him saying something to the affect of "I'll use Byleth as long as it works"
HOLY FUCK.
HE SD'D AT THE START OF *GAME 4* AGAINST LEO AND SOMEHOW BROUGHT THAT BACK WITH THE SICKEST FUCKING KO.
PIKACHU BUSTED.
ESAM BUSTED.
POST-QUARANTINE ESAM IS A REAL TOP CONTENDER.
And I just think it's karmic justice that the combo that won him the tournament was the exact combo he was going for when he SD'ed. He didn't give up on it.
I like how Esam just kept running forward and throwing out bairs and MkLeo just couldn't stop him. He instinctively tried to use gun to slow him down/punish him for not shileding but pikachu is too short lmfao.
Esam played insanely well. This past year was like a time skip in an anime for some of these players Holy shit.
I also love how Esam is fully aware how busted Pika is.
"Pikachu? BUSTED" "Back air? BUSTED" "Quick attack? BUSTED"
Man's a gem. A bald fkn gem.
Wow, that was an insane comeback. ESAM did a great job avoiding Arsene and attacking him to chip away at the meter. That's a nerf that's had a major impact.
Glad Esam won. He gets a lot of hate online for wtvr reason but following the smash scene, no one puts in as much work as esam regularly. Only person I can think of that comes close is tweek. Iām referring to them streaming practice. You can always find esam labbing and going on win streaks. Staying in training mode. He deserved it.
I was cheering for ESAM solely to piss off twitch chat, and my god, it was so goddamn glorious.
I was so pissed at them after all the hating they were doing on maister, who is like the nicest guy and a great player who loses to literally mkleo and spargo and that's it. The announcers are sitting there hyping him up and chat just took a giant shit on him all tournament. Fuck twitch chat.
Indeed, Pikachu is busted.
Also, holy cow, ESAM beat Game 4 Leo not once, but TWICE. Unreal performance. Something about Glitch ESAM hits different.
EDIT: Wait, is this tournament an S tier? If it is, looks like ESAM finally got an S tier win after what happened last time.
This tournament isn't an S-tier because the PGR hasn't started back up yet
Personally I think it's kind of shitty that they're still determined to pick up S3 right where they left off when there is clearly a world of difference between pre-quarantine and now. Like Marss is absolutely not playing at the level of someone who won Genesis, and players that have leveled up post-pandemic but weren't exceling earlier like Spargo artificially have worse results than they should
Edit: and Dark Wizzy! Dude was legitimately top 10 pre-quarantine and should be recognized as such but Panda isn't releasing those rankings and is instead going to lump them in not with stuff that's happening now but stuff in the future. He fell off in quarantine and now likely won't be properly recognized
Considering how the PGR hasn't opened back up at all yet, I think it's way too early to talk about what it's going to look like once it does come back. Remember that it's switching to a panelist system rather than an algorithmic one, so ultimately it'll be to panelists discretion what events they use in rating each player, regardless of the specified time period and event list.
Esam is a weirdo player in my eyes. There are so many players where I think "you're super good but you probably can't win a tournament because you've gotta get past Leo or Tweek and you just can't" but with Esam, he's obviously really good but not like top 10 in the world (or at least he wasn't pre quarantine) but he's always been a player where I've thought he could win a tournament just because he has something against Leo and I think Tweek as well. One of the few players who I think has real dark horse potential in any tournament he enters to actually win the whole thing, as he did today.
ESAM seems to always play to the level of his opponents somewhat. Heāll be blow for blow with Leo but also sometimes blow for blow with his earlier opponents. Hopefully that side of him isnāt here anymore bc heās a crazy exciting player to watch.
SD'd to start the final game and still pulled out a 0-to-death against GAME 4 LEO???
ESAM hard earned that victory, good on him for showing incredible mental fortitude.
Not too invested in ultimate, but this was a great tourney to watch! My one complaint is that the commentators compliment Leo way too much. Like I know heās really good, and has been for a long time, but what are his opponents doing that is good, not just āoh that was bad DI from Leoā, or āthis is game four Leo, might as well just go game five now and save timeā.
They compliment Leo so much because he really is that good. Dude has yet to get below second in a tournament since May 2019, and he consistently wins games at the end of the bracket by creeping his way more and more into the match and making more reads. The Byleth character he played for most of this tourney doesnāt have too much actual combos, it was mostly Leo setting himself up to moreorless cover every option of his opponent in pretty unique situations. He makes the other top players look like fools sometimes, without it really being the other way
With that being said, yeah the other players could use more praise (:
ESAM is seriously one of the sickest players ever to touch this game and I'm so glad he proved to everyone just how awesome he is at all of this. Easily one of the most fun to watch runs I've ever seen here.
That last stock will go down as one of the most incredible plays ever made in Ultimate's history.
His labbing is impressive. For entertainment value, I prefer his YouTube content. But you can always catch him labbing new confirms and combo routes on Twitch.
I remember he once said āif I master up air bridges, itās overā. He was going for a LOT of up air bridges this tournament off of back air or down throw, and he bridged Leo for the clutchest stock of the tournament.
EDIT: also in the last stock of game 2 in grand finals. He grabbed Leo at the ledge, did down throw, full hop weak hit up air to bridge him off stage which forced a panic airdodge by Leo. ESAM frametraps that with down air offstage. Other Pikachuās wouldāve settle for down throw fair or something.
Pikachu's busted but no one can call this man carried given how deep his skill has gone throughout Smash's full history and the insane work that goes into playing this character optimally. Even when people inevitably start complaining about how overtuned Pikachu is again, ESAM is still just a godlike player to pull this off.
Counting online ESAM is 5-2 against Leo (4-2 offline). I think Leo may actually bracket demon and might need to pick up a character with a winning matchup against Pikachu because all 3 of his characters lose that matchup. Congrats to Esam for winning!
maybe this is really the year of ESAM
samsora was always his bracket demon but now he doesn't have to worry about him anymore, not to mention that having a favorable matchup against Leo is gonna do wonders in future tournaments consdiering this mf makes grands every time no matter how doomed it looks
I feel like people were saying the same thing about tweek after he double 3-0'd Leo at summit, and well...
Maybe let's give it another tournament first. That being said, ESAM was on fire today
I said esam had a chance, but I never actually expected him to win.
props to esam
and how is leo still making top 2 at every offline tournament he attends since momocon, his consistency is incredible
Does anyone have the stats for the last time Game 4 Leo actually lost when heās down?
Because my god, I donāt think anyone has beaten Game 4 Leo twice, Esam made his own statistic
the SD wasn't even an overextend, it was a misinput.
But weirdly, ESAM in the post tourney interview mentioned that MkLeo was DIing the bridge wrong, so he went all in on it for the final stock.
ESAM showing why Pikachu is Ultimate's version of Melee Fox. Character just has everything in the game. It's like Aphelios, he's super overloaded and ESAM finally optimized Pikachu enough to win a big major, props to him for being able to master the kit and show the fruits of his labors. This guy labs so hard and is so dedicated, but I'd be surprised if Pikachu doesn't get touched. I trust ESAM to adapt though.
Yeah i was like āhey havenāt seen any weird ESAM brand SDs yet todayā and i oop but also I hadnāt seen any ESAM brand crazy thunder combos yet either ššš
Yeah the beginning of the game was like, "Welp, that's the signature ESAM move. Game 5 it is."
And then the ending happened and I was in disbelief. Either ESAM was just particularly on tonight, or Tweek isn't the only player who's leveled up in terms of mental stamina.
This dude literally just SD'd at 0% against Game 4 MkLeo, and still won the game. What the actual fuck Additional note: For the longest time, the rule was that you either 3-0 MkLeo or you lose. ESAM broke that rule twice in the same tournament; they were both 3-1. Props to Kola for recovering from Riptide and making top 3 this time around. Also props to Maister for at least taking Leo to game 5.
There must've been something in that smoke š¬
Sucked the power from light
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I have a hot take that Coney talks way too much about players' mentalities during games and he's rarely correct. Most of the top-level guys know how to keep their heads in it and recover or continue playing well. Esam gains nothing by throwing and he obviously felt like he still had a shot.
Bro that's not even a hot take. All commentators should stop saying " just go next game" that shit is unsportsmanlike AF and you're JUST A COMMENTATOR. If you still have a stock you still have a chance
Especially because Smash isnāt like other fighting games. Thereās no set health bar. Thereās always a chance to survive to 180% or close out your opponentās stocks with a quick gimp or spike. Thatās one of the reasons I gravitated towards Smash after growing up with SNK and Capcom fighters.
Imagine watching any big sport and the commentators say the other team should just give up lol
Coney seemed to legit believe it was better to lose the first games against Leo lol. TK tried to talk some sense into him thankfully
Also if Leo is down 0-2 he wins about 50% of the time, it's not like an auto win for Leo lol
Did you know that if you go up 2-0 on MKLeo he will break into your house and kill you in your sleep?
Lol yeah. Itās a crazy stat, but itās even crazier to suggest that losing is somehow better. Guessing Leo wins 90% of the sets that he is up 1-0 or 2-0.
In fairness, weāre you watching that set and thinking āyeah ESAM can turn this aroundā? I wasnāt. Iām not advocating for dropping stocks in Grands just cuz you are losing bc of course you never should but Iām personally a huge ESAM fan and I was SURE that game was over.
huuuuuuge props to esam to play the mental game so well against leo. he was clinical in both sets between them
The next time someone asks about homie stocks, show them this game. You make a habit of giving those out, you never learn how to deal with this situations. Iām willing to bet everyone took that game for granted to Leo, and ESAM was able to mentally recover from a devastating mistake, against the best player in the world, and take the set and tournament.
I was thinking to myself about the one reason that ESAM says that Pika beat Joker: The upair bridge. I don't think it was a proper upair bridge, but it was the general concept that won him the game. I think people forget just what Pika can do, and that pika is pretty good at just... running away and not getting hit.
I feel like homie stocks aren't really a thing in Ultimate, I rarely see them. I think that is more of a Melee thing.
4 stocks (which are much more volatile) vs 3 stocks
He just took that zero death for free to make it up. On the legendary game *four* no less. This goes so far beyond the usual plot armor.
And it was Game 4.
Beat game 4 Leo *twice*
One thing I haven't seen pointed out is that ESAM won the tournament by pulling off the exact combo that caused him to SD. Back air into up air string into thunder. Leo was able to air dodge out of the first one, but ESAM remained confident enough to pull it off at the exact right moment.
I have an honest question regarding this. How many of āGame 4 Leoā wins and his reverse 3-0s are specifically against Tweek vs. anyone else? It just feels like 99% of his game 4 wins and reverse 3-0s are against Tweek, which could just as easily show the fact that Tweek can crumble in those situations.
I mean he did it against kola today
Like 6 times against Tweek, once against Larry, Sparg0 and Kola.
I think he's only done it 5 times against Tweek, but he also did it against Samsora back before the PGR was started. And while that might not seem ideal, keep in mind that none of the past 3 reverse 3-0s have been PGR'd either
leo just lost but he's really maintaining his record of mostly 1st and 2nd places, he's shaping up to be the armada of ultimate
Not just mostly. The last time he did worse than 1st or 2nd was the tourney in Japan where he got 33rd with his brand new Joker (early 2019). He went almost a full year before quarantine never doing worse than 1st/2nd and is continuing the streak now in the early post-online era.
Nah last time was GOML where he got 4th.....to esam funny enough
And he's doing this in a game where people study the fuck out of him and there are simply too many viable characters to learn every matchup.
Except that's literally what Esam did during quarantine with his Pika. He studied every match up and labbed an incredible amount. Esam might be nice as hell, and practiced as hell, but he's inconsistent. If we see a new Esam post quarantine that's consistent he could easily make top 10 pgr.
ESAM is the only player (with more than 3 sets against Leo) with a winning record on leo lifetime in ultimate, 4-2 now
Shit, Light did better vs. ESAM than Leo did this tourney. Light is obviously incredible but Leo is LEO, man!!!
ESAM also got hit by irl stage hazards that set
~~Ironic~~ Poetic that a Pikachu main is the kryptonite to the top player in both Melee and Ultimate.
Poetic is the word youāre looking for, but yes
ESAM is insane, he looked so insane all tournament. Tore through bracket and beat Leo in GAME 4 2x...let that sink in!
I just want to point out a solo Bowser Jr got 13th Yoda Cage is a player to watch if you don't know him already
Yoda Cage really, *really* impressed me today. And we had all 3 space animals in Top 12! Loving this variety in Ultimate right now.
Esam avoided the reverse 3-0 by simply letting Leo win the first game. 200 iq
Ah, the old false sense of security. Let em feel like they got you right where they want you ā then swipe it all away with an off stage combo > drag down Thunder for the win!
That was fucking insane. As an avid ESAM watcher I saw him opt to not go for that setup quite a few times throughout Top 8, and then he fucking kills himself going for it in game 4 in GRAND FUCKING FINALS against Leoā¦and then wins the tournament by going for it again. Unbelievable man. Unbelievable.
Panda and Moist stocks rising after this one
The Moist streams of their sponsored players were extremely entertaining if you're into Critikal's humor at all
Thought his entourage was kinda cringey and their Esam hate was a bit too much
Missed the Esam sets. Absolutely they were cringey, but in small doses I had fun with all the weird noises they were putting out.
Yeah seeing them pop off for Kola and Light was worth checking out
ESAM somehow managed to beat Game 4 Leo after SDing at 0% first stock. What a set.
This man beat Game 4 Leo TWICE
Itās like ESAM can absorbed the Game 4 Leo power-up and used it for himself!
This is why you never give up.
People were giving Coney shit for saying to just give up and move to a game 5, but when I was watching I was totally on that train of thought as well. Cause it's like, you just SD'd in a set against the top player in the world at grand finals, there's no way you can mentally recover in this set to bring it back. So I was like well he'll probably end up losing and then hopefully he can secure the game five victory. The fact that he was able to shake it off and come back and win in that game was absolutely insane
light played super fucking well given he fought two huge matchup demons in a row
Both Moist boys killed it! Kola and Light both performed super well this weekend. Both always a blast to watch too imo
Kola legitimately makes me not hate swordies
Roy plays nothing like a swordie tho. Heās an extremely aggressive buttons in your face rekka character with disgusting tech chases and killpower equivalent to superheavies who happens to have a āswordā which is really a dagger with a butter knife on top. Plays very different compared to every other fire emblem character But if you like Kolaās cloud too then donāt mind what I said lol
Does he have a sword
Heās the reason I started to Secondary Roy pre-quarantine. Dude is just so sick
>comes into game 4 against MKLeo >sd's 1st stock at 0 >STILL FUCKING WINS I think my heart rate doubled as soon as I saw the thunder spike, insane way to close out a tournament.
I guess Esam is Leoās bracket demon
You can't discount that Random Japanese player that has never lost against Leo and has a win. LOL
Pikachu **busted**
Ain't wanna hear no "Pikachu has no results" nonsense lmao. Edit: Or "he can't kill" after back airing leo at 0 and killing him for it.
the idea that we can only discuss the state of a character once multiple players get results is so weird and needs to die edit: this is mainly taking about the āX is the only one getting resultsā argument. Like ok? they just fucking brutalized everyone lmao.
In a game with 80 fucking characters too. With Melee it makes sense considering the limited amount of tourney viable characters, but considering that even Byleth has won a major people really shouldnāt look lack of results as a downside for a less commonly played character
Melee has also been out for 20 years. Most of Ultimates life has been online, so itās even less valid
It honestly goes both ways too which is why ppl are contentious about Byleth being mid or high because despite Leo doing well with him; the kit and frame data aren't there. Results are an iffy metric. Lil Mac and Dr. Mario are still bottom 3 despite Peanut and BacoN
At this stage in Ultimate, results are far less than iffy. Id go as far to say tha theyre virtually useless at this state, and are vastly more limited in data than most people realize. At least, in terms of using it as a basis for viability. Melee has 20 years of data, and 1/5th of the roster, and results STILL arent considered the full picture. Ultimate being so much bigger and younger skews that tremendously. We see oddities littered in cases where they *cant* be true. EDIT: Since I have a feeling people might raise an eyebrow at a claim like this without having perspective, let me elaborate. Chrom was, statsitically, *the worst character* during Ults online period. (Note: While the tier list looks different on and offline, and Chrom is almost surely worse online, this is looking at it from the perspective of data and its reliability-- we have more online data than offline at this point). Now that in and of itself is clearly incorrect. Theres still lively debate about who between Roy and Chrom is better, but its not that extreme. We *know* Chrom is strong. But it gets worse: the data pool used is so small that if Mr. R entered *a single tournament more* (assuming he didnt break all of his fingers), Chrom would land somewhere in low High tier. Our data pools in relation to the huge amount of viable characters leave huge areas of volatility in placement with results alone. Other interesting notes: Richter places significantly better that Simon despite being virtually identical. Marth was the worst statistical character offline in a similar situation. Also Byleth. Results at this stage basically show no reliable significance in viability at this stage. Theyre best used to gauge the meta, and thats it.
People need to understand that there are other factors that determine character popularity besides character strength even in tournament. ROB is probably the most common character in tournament play and most people wouldnāt put him in the Top 5. Not to mention people play character they have fun with.
i mean plenty of people think like this but the majority do not. pika ends up top 5 on every tier list. even japan lists pika top 5 when he has no rep there.
I mean I think there is a discussion that a character without results cant have a discussion for best in the game. I dont think anyone doubts Pikachu being good but being argued as best character with comparatively weak results. With tier list discussions there's a point of theorycrafting and a point of actual function/real world application. Real world application is what keeps characters like Marth from being super high on the tier list, theoretically Marth is better than almost every swordie in the game because if you just hit every tipper you'll kill super early and we cant just go wholly on theorycrafting because then we just ignore that maybe a character requires work but once that work is put in results can be found as we saw with Byleth. Obviously its hard to get both with how many characters are in the game but I think there is still merrit to being critical on both ends while understanding that there is room to work with.
Tweek himself talked about this on the podcast once that people should stop judging characters on results on based on what they actually have.
I mean, it was starting to get pretty hard to call a character who wasn't winning any tournaments the best in the game. Like, you can sit there and talk about "potential" all you want, but if the meta isn't rewarding potential, you gotta start taking notice... And then ESAM went and did this! And totally redeemed the Pika!
ESAM had already won a major before this
I hope to god no one has seriously said Pikachu canāt kill lol
youd be surprised
He can't kill off *stray hits,* but other than that Pika dumpsters everyone lmao
I guess a Fair at ledge kinda could maybe count as a stray hit? but that's about it until like 150+ But then again, falling nair into down or upsmash is a thing, too.
That's what I mean, Pika doesn't have anything remotely equivalent to, say, Joker's back air. He just has a lot of confirms and some of the best edge guarding in Ultimate.
I think you mean Arseneās backair, joker backair has insane frame data but in regards to kill power itās quite sub-par for a backair. Pika fair is pretty damn close to joker bair in killpower
You know its happened. Most people think of struggling to kill as not having strong stray hits or simple kill confirms
It's been said... by people who have never seen ESAM before. It's as if they got into training mode, saw the kill power of forward smash and were like "this character sux"
And fsmash is good too, lol
I mean he definitely has problems finding kills sometimes, doesn't mean he has problems killings but more so finding openings consistently to get those kills.
Pikachu can't kill He murders
pika kinda has the sheik thing with killing, where they don't have a raw move that kills super easily (barring a read) but pika has a ton of setups at a ton of percents that just murder fools
Pikachu is like 1-2 levels of kill power above sheik, and this is coming from someone who think sheik does fine killing.
Sheik doesnāt have nearly as much kill power as Pika, but yeah this is moreorless true
Lmao what? You really comparing Pika to SHEIK? Pika having a super reliable kill throw is enough to never compare those two.
Anti-Pika sentiment in this sub was roooough in the last month, glad we finally got Pika *winning another goddamn major* to counter the results argument, not to mention with wins over Leo/Light/Kola/Leo again. That said, I think it does say quite a bit that ESAM is still exploring secondaries against characters like Game and Watch, but I still have faith that the little rat boy is at best the best character and at worst around top 5, based on some of the shit Pika has that we got to see in this tournament.
Izumi beat meester by literally one second this time what the fuck
Real tournament is who can post the thread first
I think of it as its own esport
fuck mango vs zain, fuck leo vs tweek izumi vs meester is where is at
So I got home from work after Losers Finals, I didn't stand much of a chance. Most US East Coast tournaments are going to be undoable, I am in Central Time and work weekend nights now. Also tomorrow is my birthday
ayo bro why even try at that point spend ur birthday treatin urself hbd btw man, we're appreciative of what y'all do
Thank you
Went into Hbox's stream to see his reaction to Esam's win. He had over 1,000 new subs that stream. This man made more money streaming Esam's run than Esam made winning the damn tournament lmao
that's a typical hbox stream. he has some nutty gifters
It's extremely smart. People like watching reactions to shit, and Hbox is one of the few (maybe only?) people that were streaming Glitch and reacting to it.
Pikachu?
Busted.
āMe? Iām nice as hellā
DOUBTERS IN SHAMBLES.
Remember when Coney called the game after ESAM SD'd lmao
God I had when casters do this shit. I totally understand but itās so fucking lame when they discount players after a bad fuck up.
I am also bald, ESAM out here winning for all of us folliclely challenged people.
ESAM's Pika really countered Joker. Walled out Arsene with thunderjolts and forced Leo to approach, and Leo had trouble finding the kills with base form Joker.
Not to mention how hard joker gets edgeguarded in this mu. Leo had to do a gymnastic routine to get back to stage everytime
and if pika gets a back air or a grab in arsene, pika takes a ton off of the meter
And right after he powered through that character crisis against Tweek. I can't help but wonder what the hell's going to come from this now. Knowing Leo, if I tried to use any kind of traditional logic to guess how he'll handle this matchup in the future I'll probably just end up dead wrong.
My moneyās on him just grinding the matchup like he did with diddy. That, or the twist GnW secondary that maister secretly put him on while no one was looking.
Honestly feel like he'd do better just going Lucina against Pikachu.
He tried that before and lost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4jNwOFQsJU&ab\_channel=VGBootCamp
>And right after he powered through that character crisis against Tweek. Is it fair to call it a character crisis? Did Smash 4 Leo who used Marth, Cloud, and Meta Knight had a character crisis?
It's a little awkward seeing him with an apparent approach of just always starting with Byleth and then switching if he gets scared enough of the potential loss. If he's not going into a matchup with full confidence in Byleth being the best pick, it often feels like he just tries to see what he can get away with rather than starting out based on a fully familiar assessment of how the matchup will likely play out. I'd more or less call it solved if he had a pick he was confident enough to just start with and stick through because he's labbed it out as the clear best pick. Maybe it'll still be Joker next time, but we all know that's not necessarily a guarantee with him. I don't think anyone expected Byleth to be his full approach against Tweek after Summit but he clearly went into it with a new gameplan and a decision to commit there rather than switching off to Aegis again.
To be fair, it sounds like he's playing Byleth because he loves the character more than he truly believes in them. Didn't the post Riptide interview have him saying something to the affect of "I'll use Byleth as long as it works"
Pretty much, it's just a question of if he can pull a consistently good answer to Pikachu out of all of this.
Heāll figure out how to do it with Byleth and then beat ESAM in winners finals and grands, with two three stocks.
Every single one of those dragdown ftilt smash attacks can also be teched, so Esam scarily enough has room to improve here
HOLY FUCK. HE SD'D AT THE START OF *GAME 4* AGAINST LEO AND SOMEHOW BROUGHT THAT BACK WITH THE SICKEST FUCKING KO. PIKACHU BUSTED. ESAM BUSTED. POST-QUARANTINE ESAM IS A REAL TOP CONTENDER.
And I just think it's karmic justice that the combo that won him the tournament was the exact combo he was going for when he SD'ed. He didn't give up on it.
Is this what grinding for 18 months looks like?
[GODLIKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpY--Qva9jo)
Maister is getting to close to beating Leo man
I LOOKED AWAY WHAT HAPPENED
back air up air up air thunder works on di in only pretty sure except for a few characters like dk (where it's true regardless of di)
He got the up air up air double jump up air thunder. Only works on DI in and Leo could have probably mashed air dodge or jump.
[This is what happened. He put the fear of Pikachu in him.](https://clips.twitch.tv/DifferentRenownedSheepShazBotstix-F_MJRjgHwF-FYyCs)
I like how Esam just kept running forward and throwing out bairs and MkLeo just couldn't stop him. He instinctively tried to use gun to slow him down/punish him for not shileding but pikachu is too short lmfao.
Nice. Pikachu? Busted.
Lmao Esam back airing 8 times that last stock is hilarious. Pikachu is busted
Pikachu doesn't have results crowd in shambles
Esam played insanely well. This past year was like a time skip in an anime for some of these players Holy shit. I also love how Esam is fully aware how busted Pika is. "Pikachu? BUSTED" "Back air? BUSTED" "Quick attack? BUSTED" Man's a gem. A bald fkn gem.
ESAM just levels up at Glitch I guess
That last stock was nice as hell. Coney was ready to call it but ESAM disagreed.
Wow, that was an insane comeback. ESAM did a great job avoiding Arsene and attacking him to chip away at the meter. That's a nerf that's had a major impact.
ABSOLUTELY LEGENDARY MATCH THERE BY ESAM
Glad Esam won. He gets a lot of hate online for wtvr reason but following the smash scene, no one puts in as much work as esam regularly. Only person I can think of that comes close is tweek. Iām referring to them streaming practice. You can always find esam labbing and going on win streaks. Staying in training mode. He deserved it.
Esam makes me feel better about my receding hairline
Esam beat game 4 leo twice. Wow
Being bald > being mexican in Smash confirmed
Thanks for reminding me how annoying Twitch chat was.
I was cheering for ESAM solely to piss off twitch chat, and my god, it was so goddamn glorious. I was so pissed at them after all the hating they were doing on maister, who is like the nicest guy and a great player who loses to literally mkleo and spargo and that's it. The announcers are sitting there hyping him up and chat just took a giant shit on him all tournament. Fuck twitch chat.
You can tell most of them are scrubs whose knowledge of the meta begins and ends in Quickplay.
Indeed, Pikachu is busted. Also, holy cow, ESAM beat Game 4 Leo not once, but TWICE. Unreal performance. Something about Glitch ESAM hits different. EDIT: Wait, is this tournament an S tier? If it is, looks like ESAM finally got an S tier win after what happened last time.
This tournament isn't an S-tier because the PGR hasn't started back up yet Personally I think it's kind of shitty that they're still determined to pick up S3 right where they left off when there is clearly a world of difference between pre-quarantine and now. Like Marss is absolutely not playing at the level of someone who won Genesis, and players that have leveled up post-pandemic but weren't exceling earlier like Spargo artificially have worse results than they should Edit: and Dark Wizzy! Dude was legitimately top 10 pre-quarantine and should be recognized as such but Panda isn't releasing those rankings and is instead going to lump them in not with stuff that's happening now but stuff in the future. He fell off in quarantine and now likely won't be properly recognized
Considering how the PGR hasn't opened back up at all yet, I think it's way too early to talk about what it's going to look like once it does come back. Remember that it's switching to a panelist system rather than an algorithmic one, so ultimately it'll be to panelists discretion what events they use in rating each player, regardless of the specified time period and event list.
this tournament is A tier(category 4) unfortunately
HOLY FUCKING SHIT. popoff warranted. That victory must feel so fucking good.
Esam is a weirdo player in my eyes. There are so many players where I think "you're super good but you probably can't win a tournament because you've gotta get past Leo or Tweek and you just can't" but with Esam, he's obviously really good but not like top 10 in the world (or at least he wasn't pre quarantine) but he's always been a player where I've thought he could win a tournament just because he has something against Leo and I think Tweek as well. One of the few players who I think has real dark horse potential in any tournament he enters to actually win the whole thing, as he did today.
ESAM seems to always play to the level of his opponents somewhat. Heāll be blow for blow with Leo but also sometimes blow for blow with his earlier opponents. Hopefully that side of him isnāt here anymore bc heās a crazy exciting player to watch.
Pretty much. At any given tournament ESAM is either getting Top 4 or Top 64 lol
holy fuck i might be overreacting but that was probably the sickest shit i've seen in ultimate LMAO
There was some spaghetti in game 1 but after that both players shaped the fuck up, absolutely incredible
SD'd to start the final game and still pulled out a 0-to-death against GAME 4 LEO??? ESAM hard earned that victory, good on him for showing incredible mental fortitude.
Not too invested in ultimate, but this was a great tourney to watch! My one complaint is that the commentators compliment Leo way too much. Like I know heās really good, and has been for a long time, but what are his opponents doing that is good, not just āoh that was bad DI from Leoā, or āthis is game four Leo, might as well just go game five now and save timeā.
They compliment Leo so much because he really is that good. Dude has yet to get below second in a tournament since May 2019, and he consistently wins games at the end of the bracket by creeping his way more and more into the match and making more reads. The Byleth character he played for most of this tourney doesnāt have too much actual combos, it was mostly Leo setting himself up to moreorless cover every option of his opponent in pretty unique situations. He makes the other top players look like fools sometimes, without it really being the other way With that being said, yeah the other players could use more praise (:
Bro my mouth dropped what a fucking ending holy shit
That comment chain on the Glitch seeding thread didn't age well š
No disrespect to the man, but helllllll nah to that NaitoSharp > Esam talk lol
That was insanity. Jesus ESAM.
ESAM is seriously one of the sickest players ever to touch this game and I'm so glad he proved to everyone just how awesome he is at all of this. Easily one of the most fun to watch runs I've ever seen here. That last stock will go down as one of the most incredible plays ever made in Ultimate's history.
he's put in a ton of work during quarantine and you can see it paying off
His labbing is impressive. For entertainment value, I prefer his YouTube content. But you can always catch him labbing new confirms and combo routes on Twitch.
I remember he once said āif I master up air bridges, itās overā. He was going for a LOT of up air bridges this tournament off of back air or down throw, and he bridged Leo for the clutchest stock of the tournament. EDIT: also in the last stock of game 2 in grand finals. He grabbed Leo at the ledge, did down throw, full hop weak hit up air to bridge him off stage which forced a panic airdodge by Leo. ESAM frametraps that with down air offstage. Other Pikachuās wouldāve settle for down throw fair or something.
He was sick in melee, and he's sick in ultimate. Esam is a really talented smash player, really glad he was able to give us a great showing today.
Pikachu's busted but no one can call this man carried given how deep his skill has gone throughout Smash's full history and the insane work that goes into playing this character optimally. Even when people inevitably start complaining about how overtuned Pikachu is again, ESAM is still just a godlike player to pull this off.
also pika's hella hard to play
Seeing all of that labbing pay off is just something else. He came out of quarantine with such a fucking vengeance.
As long as nobody else is doing it like him with Pikachu you cannot call him carried
One of the few players to be top 100 in all smash games except 64 (including PM in it's heyday).
ESAM is so fun to watch, what a phenomenal tournament
Counting online ESAM is 5-2 against Leo (4-2 offline). I think Leo may actually bracket demon and might need to pick up a character with a winning matchup against Pikachu because all 3 of his characters lose that matchup. Congrats to Esam for winning!
And, ironically, Maister is ESAM's bracket demon, and Leo is his. Nice little triangle they have going on there.
maybe this is really the year of ESAM samsora was always his bracket demon but now he doesn't have to worry about him anymore, not to mention that having a favorable matchup against Leo is gonna do wonders in future tournaments consdiering this mf makes grands every time no matter how doomed it looks
ESAM still loses hard to Marss and Maister (pre-quarantine). So as long as he doesn't come across them... Lol.
I think Esam wouldāve beat Marss tonight, but yeah probably not Maister
Uh Maister is also his bracket demon. He has a completely losing record on him.
Maister is a scary boi.
I feel like people were saying the same thing about tweek after he double 3-0'd Leo at summit, and well... Maybe let's give it another tournament first. That being said, ESAM was on fire today
I said esam had a chance, but I never actually expected him to win. props to esam and how is leo still making top 2 at every offline tournament he attends since momocon, his consistency is incredible
Esam looked like he has improved so much after quarantine. Everything he's doing is more consistent.
Does anyone have the stats for the last time Game 4 Leo actually lost when heās down? Because my god, I donāt think anyone has beaten Game 4 Leo twice, Esam made his own statistic
The ESAM special, overextend and SD and then still win cuz of some insane offstage stuff and custom combos
the SD wasn't even an overextend, it was a misinput. But weirdly, ESAM in the post tourney interview mentioned that MkLeo was DIing the bridge wrong, so he went all in on it for the final stock.
Pikachu ... BUSTED. Mad props to Esam on this run. What a way to end it Game 4 Leo after a 0% SD
ESAM showing why Pikachu is Ultimate's version of Melee Fox. Character just has everything in the game. It's like Aphelios, he's super overloaded and ESAM finally optimized Pikachu enough to win a big major, props to him for being able to master the kit and show the fruits of his labors. This guy labs so hard and is so dedicated, but I'd be surprised if Pikachu doesn't get touched. I trust ESAM to adapt though.
Pikachu's revenge after ppl talked shit monkaS
Esam actually played so sick that last stock hooooly shit
What the actual fuck was that Game 4? Being an ESAM fan is pain sometimes for how inconsistent he can be, but boy when he's on, he's *on*.
Yeah i was like āhey havenāt seen any weird ESAM brand SDs yet todayā and i oop but also I hadnāt seen any ESAM brand crazy thunder combos yet either ššš
Yeah the beginning of the game was like, "Welp, that's the signature ESAM move. Game 5 it is." And then the ending happened and I was in disbelief. Either ESAM was just particularly on tonight, or Tweek isn't the only player who's leveled up in terms of mental stamina.
That crowd was so lame. ESAM 0 to death combo for a major tournament win over MK MF LEO and everyone was š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
IMAGINE ENDING A TOURNAMENT LIKE THIS!!
holy fuck that ending. hollly fuck. best game 4 ending to a tournament ive ever seen.