History of the Midwest Smash Scene

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Contents 1 The Beginnings 1.1 The Ohio Tournament that Never Was – June 22nd, 2002 1.2 Chicago Tournament – Marth wins! - August 5, 2002 1.3 Tournament Go 3 - The Story of Snap Pop – August 24th, 2002 1.4 A Second Chicago Championship – Tier Testing - October, 2002 1.4.1 HUMOROUS SIDENOTE #0 – Snex Brings Tiers to GameFAQs? 1.5 Michigan Tournament – November 29th, 2002

[edit] The Beginnings

[edit] The Ohio Tournament that Never Was – June 22nd, 2002

In the beginning of Midwest Smash, there were many n00bs. Many of them would post up, asking for a true test of their skill.[1]

“i really want a tournament to go on soon(not much competition around here) although it would be better to have one a little closer (parents wont want to drive) but as long as we have one thats cool. well I'm defiantly interested and so is my bro and maybe a couple of my friends.I really hope one of our tournaments works out I don't care whos as long as we get a tournament.” – Vidjo, age 13

Thus, an Ohio tournament at Case Western Reserve University was tentatively scheduled for June 22nd, 2002. Arguments began about rules and location, but SuperPichu (V) and PimpLuigi, both forum moderators, along with LazyNova, a friend of V, stood firm on their settings. It slowly became apparent that many of the participants in the discussion were teenagers whose moms would not let them travel to internet tournaments, and even this final plea from Vidjo (who did not attend) could not save the doomed tournament.

“Also you really should come here is another fact i would like to bring up....... What more could you want:
Super Smash Bros Melee
Lots of Competitition
New Opponents Just Waiting to Test Your Skill
A Tournament To See Whos The Melee Master”

Nevertheless, Smash had begun to thrive elsewhere. California was the hotbed of activity, but Texas had developed a fledgling scene as well. With these areas proving it was possible, the Midwest was destined to have a tournament scene. Ohio might not have been the foundation of Midwest Smash, but fortunately someone else took up the mantle.

[edit] Chicago Tournament – Marth wins! - August 5, 2002

Tournament Results

The first recorded tournament that actually occurred and was posted on Smashboards was announced by SmashBroPro. It was held at a local game store in Chicago. SmashBroPro would go on to host this regular series of Chicago tournaments for over 6 months. Many current tournament conventions were not adhered to, and when inspecting the results thread one will find that smash players are not even identified by name, but rather by character, so it is difficult to identify any real players. However, this first tournament quickly became a regular occurrence, and a general invitation was given out on the boards to come out every Sunday for tournaments. Responses from local Chicago crews poured in:

“cool, that comic shop is about 15 min away from where i live so you can count me and my three other friends in. i like to believe we're really good so be prepared.“ - DJXXX

While this is likely not the first SBP weekly, these are the first posted results from an SBP weekly: 1) Eduardo (Marth) 6-1 2) Eddie (Ganondorf) 5-2 3) DJ XXX (Luigi) 4-2 4) Da’Shiekie (Sheik) 3-3 5) Jake (Marth) 3-2 6) SmashBroPro (Falco) 3-2 7)Tony (Fox) 2-3

SBP and his brother had dominated much of the local competition, but the response from the DJXXX crew would shake things up significantly. The Top 4 in the standings above became the dominant Chicago crew for some time. While early on they were referred to as the DJXXX crew, later as the Chicago smash scene began to fall apart they merely became known as the “Chicago Crew.” Eduardo, his brother DJXXX, and Eddie all shared the Top 3 positions in Chicago for the next 9 months, with Eddie and Eduardo slowly spacing themselves from Eduardo’s Luigi-playing brother. These Chicago tournaments were the only tournament activity in the Midwest for some time.

SBP was not content with a Chicago-only Midwest scene. In an effort to bring in people from further away, the “Chicago Championship” was held at the end of September in 2002. There were not any tournaments of note in Ohio, but there were a couple players in Ohio who considered themselves a notch above the rest. After the demise of their own tournament, Ohio’s LazyNova and SuperPichu (V) traveled out of Case Western University to test their skills. PimpLuigi, another moderator, was from Ohio State and eventually formed his own crew, which would go on to become Equals D. All three of them traveled in for the Chicago Championship.

It went as most expected. Eduardo dominated from start to finish, and though absolute final results were never posted it can be derived that Eduardo, DJXXX, a player named Mike, and SBP all placed Top 4 at this event. More Chicago tournaments were held in the coming weeks, but the next major development in Smash did not take place until April of 2003.

[edit] Tournament Go 3 - The Story of Snap Pop – August 24th, 2002

Smashboards Thread

A trick used by many tournaments nowadays to lure in outside competition is the out of state bonus, where the tournament hosts put up a quantity of cash to attract outside competition and greater attendance. Mattdeezie, convinced of California dominance as the only fully developed Smash community of the time, offered the first out of state bonus at TG 3, putting his faith in champion Justin from Vallejo. This led to interest from several Midwestern players.

“This applies to any person who lives at least 5 hours away from the tournament. I will personally be putting down 100 of my own dollars to any out of the area person who can take this tournament. So basically, if you live 5 hours away, and you come to TG3, and win the one vs one tournament, you get the original pot, which is usually around 100 dollars, and on top of that, my bonus 100. This is to hopefully bring in some outside competition.” - Mattdeezie

Additionally, pertaining to tier discussion:

“Scamp has decided to give the winner of the tournament $20 if they can take the tournament without using Fox, Falco or Sheik.” – Mattdeezie

This made for one of the biggest pots that the tournament community had ever seen. SmashBroPro, PimpLuigi, and Snap Pop all responded with interest, though SBP and PimpLuigi both resigned themselves to going to (and teaming at) the next TG, if and when it should happen. Snap Pop, however, was a different story.

“What I want to know, is how good the people who make it to the finals really are. In fact, I registered a few moments ago just to make this post. I was wondering if anyone has any match videos with some of the top contenders in them. I live pretty far away and I don't think I will be able to make it...however, if you really suck, I might have to scrape up the money to fly out and smack you all around ” – Snap Pop

The trash talk built from that point, Snap Pop being confident that she stood a chance of winning the bonus and paying for her travel, and California certain that there was no good competition where she was to accurately evaluate herself. After all, she might be the champion of Kentucky, but who the heck plays Smash well in Kentucky? There were also many disputes on tiers, with Snap Pop arguing for characters like Ness and Mario as top tier and California still fighting for Fox, Falco, and Sheik. One can probably guess whose game was more developed. It was largely a friendly rivalry that was built up, and the California players looked forward to playing and meeting her, though they apparently did not realize she was female until her arrival.

Over 40 people showed up for one of the biggest tournaments ever held. After surprising people with her gender, she surprised some with her Smash skills as well. She showed off her Marth and Falcon and did very well in the team tournament with Cory from Texas, beating Justin and JR, the top 2 players from Vallejo, in the Round Robins. As is traditional with TGs, brackets and final results were never really posted, so the rest of their teams exploits remain covered. After this showing, the drama for singles began brewing. After another round-robin seeding pool, early matchups proved to be difficult for Snap, forced into playing MattDeezie early in the first round. From there, Scamp summarizes:

“I had to play Snap Pop. I felt so bad eliminating her, as she came all this way to go 2 and out. (Her first match was against Deezie. She got screwed in the pairings too.) But, on the other hand, I sure as he!l wasn't going to go 2 and out either....”

So unfortunately for the Midwest, Snap Pop went two-and-out, though Californians were still impressed. It was agreed that she had one of the worst brackets having to play 2 of the Top 5 players from TG2, MattDeezie and Scamp.

“At least I've finally seen two Marths (Cory and Snap Pop's) that are worth the hype, as well as Snap Pop's uber-team Captain.” – LordLocke

She was the first Midwest smasher to make the trip out to California, and she brought back her experiences with her. Sadly, it appears she never made a trip to Chicago to compete against the other Midwest players at this time, but she did return to the scene later and has been a member of the community ever since, attending Midwest tournaments when they pique her interest.

[edit] A Second Chicago Championship – Tier Testing - October, 2002

In October, the DJXXX Crew was still dominating the Midwest scene, though there were few tournament regulars at this time. Results from a second “Chicago Championship” were posted as:

1 Eduardo (Marth)
2 DJ (Luigi)
3 Eddie (Gannondorf)
3 SBP (Fox/Peach)
5 PimpLuigi (Luigi/Sheik)

TG4 (California) and MOAST (Texas) are both being referenced as upcoming hot regional tournaments. Tournament play as a whole was still sparse outside of Chicago, and even though California had made a well-evidenced decision about tiers, Midwesterners were just beginning to test out their own first impressions of them, as evidenced by the following quotes between weeklies.

“There were a lot of shieks, and a shiek won, so I'd say it does re-enforce the view of shiek as really good. Fox, Luigi, Gannondorf, and Marth all did well too, so I can justify classifying them highly, and I didn't see anything the keeps me from leaving fox in the very top tier with shiek. Jiggles fared well, someone making it to the finals with her and stuff, but I haven't been a Jiggles hater since near the end of my time with the old smash. Still, I guess it may have improved my view of Jiggles slightly. It basicly confirmed my view that Falco, while still good, just isn't fit for the very top tier. I wasn't really impressed by any Samus, but then I didn't really see much either. Same goes for peach.” - LazyNova

“Oh yes, oh yes... it's only a matter of time now before everyone realizes that (Falco) can't hang with whoever is in the top tier.” – Snap Pop

“I'm the ganondorf player from DJ XXX crew, and i hope i get to show snap the triforce of power. I disagree fox is better. He doesn't really have good edgeguarding capabilities, has short range on most of his moves, and his triple jump isn't very good. As for gannon being slow, that is just a myth. I'm am sure if you play me that you will not say gannon is slow. He is deceptively fast, which only makes him more dangerous.” - Eddie

Scamp, a very intelligent member from the NorCal crew posted,

“....welcome to the boards. Since I have nothing better to do right now I will defend Fox, as I always will. But, since this is Fox vs. Ganondorf, I'll simply refute what BigGman says in terms of Ganon being better. Fox doesn't really have good edgeguarding capabilities? I'll agree with that. But seriously, does this mean that Ganon's edgeguarding capabilities are better? I don't agree with that. Do you know what deceptively fast means? IT MEANS HE'S SLOW!!!!” – Scamp

Near the end of this period, Snex appeared. Though no record is given of him making it to the Chicago Championships, it appears that he began making it to Chicago weeklies shortly thereafter. He would soon run two tournaments that would catapult the Midwest scene from a single series of Chicago tournaments to a truly regional community.

[edit] HUMOROUS SIDENOTE #0 – Snex Brings Tiers to GameFAQs?

Snex’s legacy in the Smash scene is undeniable, but he is best known for earning his reputation on the GameFAQs Smash Brothers message board, a site that some Smash players saw as a rival to Smashboards. He was known as a fierce debater, never failing to heckle his opponents at every opportunity whilst intelligently destroying every argument that opposed his beliefs, such as the most common argument that “tiers don’t exist.” While it is rumored that he brought the first agreed upon tier list to GameFAQs, his legacy began when he merely posted the damage charts of Marth and Roy, and used it to try to convince forum-goers of Marth’s superiority. Opinions differed as to his level of amazingness, with some GameFAQs members worshiping Snex as a messenger to the pitiful masses and the best player in the country. Others couldn’t believe he thought Roy could possibly be worse than Marth and thought him a grumpy old man. Either way, everyone on the GameFAQs board had an opinion on him, and constant references and “Who is Snex?” topics continued for several years after his first appearance. Ultimately the irrelevant debate on whether or not tiers exist and the even more common “Roy has TEH PH1R3?!>!1” topics pushed members to Smashboards as a place for the mature, more seasoned tournament players.

[edit] Michigan Tournament – November 29th, 2002

Smashboards Thread

Adam, aka SUPERSAYIN held this tournament after Jv3x3 had begun hosting his own tournaments in Michigan. SmashBroPro was looking to test himself against new competition and asked for housing. Jv3x3 offered his home, though he noted it might cost him his Michigan title. Indeed it did, with SmashBroPro’s practice against Eddie and Eduardo paying off in a big way with a double-first place, proving that competitive Smash experience was vital to success at this time.

The tournament was small and few players of note attended, but it is the first recorded tournament on Smashboards in Michigan. It is also the first meeting between the Chicago and Michigan Smash scenes, and as such deserves a place of note. The Chicago scene won this time, with their fifth best member beating out all of the competition in Michigan.

Team Tournament
1) Jv3x3 & SBP
2) SuperSayin & Felix

1v1 Tournament
1) SBP
2) Jv3x3
3)SuperSayin

KNOB (Know No One’s Better) – Michigan and Ohio Meet - January 19th, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=24825 Michigan and Ohio have had a friendly rivalry for years, and it all began at this tournament. Jv3x3 had followed the Chicago smash scene for some time, but not being able to make it to one himself he decided to host the first tournaments in Michigan in his house before he left for college. While this was not the first tournament that he held, it is the first one recorded on Smashboards. It was held the same day as TG4. 8 people came out for it, including the always adventurous LazyNova and V. Singles served as another test of common tier ideas. Marth and Sheik were still generally seen as the best by Midwestern folk, though not everyone shared in that view. “His Ness threw me off big time. The air spikes and forward A's seemed to come out of nowhere...I used to think that Jiggly was an unstoppable character…That one Jiggly vs Marth vid on Joppe's site was sure misleading; and I don't know if I will spend any more time on Jiggly as a Marth counter.” – V

Singles Results 1. Andrew (Xonto) 2. LazyNova 3. Qinopio 4. Jv3x3 Teams 1. Jv3x3+lil jv3x3 2. LazyNova+V

The debate between Team Attack On and Off also still existed in the Midwest, though people were leaning towards it being on. “Team was a lot of fun, and there was def. times where someone ended up smashing their partner (admist yelling)…However i think team attack is better on. But either way there are holes. But it is virtually impossible to come back with it off, and you have to be much more precise and careful instead of just spamming or smashing.” In speaking with jv3x3 about some of these things, he said this to me about KNOB. “Actually it was pretty early in the games life cycle like 8 months or so after the game came out that the michigan thing kinda started. Basically, i meet some of the only other smashboards mi people and threw the first couple michigan tourneys with them at my place. It was mostly those mi people and some good people from ohio came too (v/super pichu/pimp luigi.. used to be a mod/played at some tgs). After that adam (3===D) threw a tourney and sbp from chicago came and won.” Adam stuck around, but does not reappear on the tournament scene against until much later, with the return of Jv3x3 and the introduction of the Midwest Massacre series.

Tournament Go 4 – January 19th, 2003 Tournament - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=22810 Results - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=25052 After the huge success of TG3 had at attracting out-of-state players like Snap Pop from the Midwest and Cory from Texas, TG4 sought to build on this. Cory and Snap Pop both returned, and many more players joined him, including SBP, Eddie, and PimpLuigi from the Midwest, Silas Elias from Texas, SKYPAL, top players from New York, and even MrSilver from The Netherlands. The Tournament Go franchise had firmly established itself as the place to go to prove yourself to the nation. The hype that surrounded this tournament was greater than any beforehand, with Ken having just challenged the best in California to $100 money matches and winning weeks prior to the tournament. Could the powers be in danger of losing their title to the GameSquare National Champion? For teams, Snap Pop agreed to team with Isai, and SBP and PimpLuigi fulfilled their promise from the TG3 thread to team for TG4. Eddie teamed with another Ganon player. Alas, none of the Midwest teams managed to scratch the top 8. Hurting the situation was the fact that the Midwest did not yet play Team Attack On. Eddie was certainly not used to it. “For the team battle, my teammate was sirus. He also played gannon, and we didn't do so good. I am not used to playing with team attack on, so I killed him alot.” Singles did not go well for the Midwest either. All of the players managed to score some wins but no one broke into the Top 8. Eddie’s Ganon was popular to watch. “I was super surprised at your gannon. Its not often you get to see someone with a usually supposed lower tier character mop the floor with lots of people.” - MattDeezie It was the first competitive Ganon that California had ever seen, but the other Midwest competitors hardly made a dent in the scene. Ken won the tournament, yet failed to convince everyone of his dominance.

“ken's good but hes not unbeatable good. i beat him on icicle mountain.” – Sultan of Samitude

“As far as player impressions go Ken was the best there, however, his play style is both repetitive and fairly predictable. I don't mean this as a slight as the guy has mad skill in making us eat it, but I wonder how flexible that attack approach is.” – SBP “There were alot really good players. I played Ken, and I beat him a round. I was upset that I got F.D. twice. Once on random, and he chose the stage…I felt that if the random stage was a neutral stage, I would of had a good shot at beating him. Ken had a combination of good luck and good skill that made him seem unbeatable. Everytime I saw him random a stage, he got a good marth stage.” - Eddie The NorCal players, oldest of the old school felt their grip on the game slipping, but were not yet ready to admit that someone had finally topped them. Even the Midwest players, impressed with the play of California as a whole, were surprised at Ken’s wins. Several of the NorCal players continued to tour the country, looking for new challenges, and Ken went back home waiting for the next California tournament to occur. The Midwest players again learned much but accomplished little in the overall standings. To reach the next level, more competition would need to be discovered.

Team Top 7 1st-Suck Fal-cox (Justin/JR) 2nd-Slashing Flamingos (Ken/Mike) 3rd -Lusheiki (Jeremey/Adam) 4th-LinXamus (John-John/Andrew) T. 5th-Built Ford Tough (Scamp/Sam) T. 5th-Team Miscellaneous (Khoa/Jeff) T. 7th- Unfair Share (Locke/Pat) T. 7th Wahoo (Jeremey(1psmet)/John)

One vs One Top 7 1st- Ken (Marth) 2nd-Jeremey(Sheik) 3rd-Sam(Falco) 4th Justin (Everybody, heh heh, um, Peach, Samus, Marth?) T. 5th-Jeff(Misc Shiek Number 8) T. 5th-MattD (Fox) T. 7th-Isai (Smus/Doc/Kirby) T. 7th-Vien (Doc) Snexus of the Universe 1 – New Challengers! – April 2003 Thread deleted – Oh noes! Continuing SBPs tournament ideals, Snex announced a tournament to be held in his home and advertised it vigorously. Smashboards was beginning to grow big enough that people were finding a reason to stay when they came, and so the number of smashers claiming to be good in the Midwest had begun to rise. Snexus 1 is notable for several major groups entering the tournament scene. Joshu and Ignatius traveled in from Mishawaka, IN. AOB, then a famous video maker known as Wuhubettur, and Grid (Amorasaki), a board moderator, traveled in from Champaign, IL in their first traveling experiences. These 4 made an immediate splash, breaking up the DJXXX crew in the standings more than it had been in some time. This is the first instance where round robin seeding was used in the Midwest, but it was not yet perfected. Joshu and Iggy played as a team for the first time, founding what would become one of the most dominant teams in the country for the next year and a half, Hail to the Chimp. They were not yet up to that level yet, falling to Team Blood in the finals. They still managed to beat all of the Chicago regulars, including the DJXXX crew’s other team of DJXXX and Da’Sheikie, and alerted even players outside the Midwest that they were a force. In singles, Ignatius placed 3rd and Joshu 4th, just behind the tandem of Eddie and Eduardo in 2nd and 1st. Eddie had yet to beat Eduardo in a tournament, but had no problem handling the new Indiana players. Snex had a rough tournament, after having risen to become one of the best players in Chicago only to be topped by several new players. AOB made his own run, defeating Joshu in the winner’s bracket but falling to him in loser’s, playing him a total of 3 times on the day. Competition in the Midwest was finally developing after a long period of inactivity, and Snex began to plan the second incarnation of his own tournament series for the coming summer, hoping to attract competition from outside the region and give the top Midwest players a shot at proving themselves.

St. Louis Tourney – First Stop for the Kishes – June 21st, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=25747 The St. Louis Tourney, hosted by Kazuki, was the first appearance of the Kish family on the tournament scene, though only KishSquared and KishCubed represented at this tournament. Also appearing was a smasher that would later be known as Dmac. A Smashboards member named Kazuki held this event, and though only 10 people showed up, it was an example of what the crew soon to be known as the “Ship of Fools” was capable of, sweeping the Top 4 spots. Quoted from thread: “winner- squared (120$) second placer- cubed (30$) third placer- joshu (gratitude) forth placer- iggy (preztals and 2 sodas)” Snex and Dmac both did not advance to bracket phase. As Joshu and Iggy had gained some notoriety with their videos from Snexus 1, it was a bit of an upset for KishSquared and KishCubed to finish in the top 2. The Punch Crew, closely following the Midwest scene in preparation for their planned trip into Chicago for Snexus 2, was surprised by the result. After an ambiguous results post, Jarrod posted. “Yeah what happened? Who won? I though Joshu was the best guy there? I guess snex would have won then?” Joshu and Iggy had already proven that they were close to Eddie and Eduardo, and two new entries raised the bar still further. The hype was building rapidly for the summer event. Kazuki and his friend Paul would appear later in the “Show Me Your Moves” tournaments in nearby Champaign, but mostly disappeared from the scene. Dmac would reemerge a year later teamed with a Smash player that many are now familiar with, Darkrain.

Directly following this tournament, shortly after a small series of tournaments in Highland, IN on June 28, 2003 (http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=26056) KishSquared posted: “Yeah, so of the three tournaments played, Joshu won the FFA, Iggy and KishPrime won the team, and I won the 1v1. St. Louis and Highland are just a shadow of what's to come... PREPARE TO FEAR INDIANA!!!” The stage was set for the best of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to clash at The Snexus of the Universe 2 with other players from all over the country. Also: “Eh? What? Someone thinks they can take on our BOWSER TEAM!?!?!? LoloLloloolololol Joshu! We must answer their pitiful challenge with our OWN pitiful challenge! We will win!!” This quote forecasts the Flame of Bowser series to come.

The First Era of Midwest Smash Snexus 2 – Foundation of the Midwest Smash Scene - July 12th, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=28626 This was the true birth of the permanent Midwest smash scene. Hosted by Snex as a follow-up to his first tournament, 48 players showed up, including many crews that would be around for a very long time. Players from Champaign (AOB, Grid), the Ship of Fools (KishPrime, KishSquared, KishCubed, Joshu, Iggy), Columbus (Smog, Fusegen, PimpLuigi), Case Western (Camper Bob, LazyNova, V), Earthbowser (deserves his own category), the Punch Crew (Jarrod, Mike), and of course the Chicago crew all attended this tournament. Even more than that, 5 players from California traveled in, Recipherus, Isai, The Doug, Scamp, and Joey. Recipherus was the IGVF Champion, and was largely considered to be the best in the country. While Ken had beaten Recipherus at TG4, many of the California players had continued to dismiss it as a fluke, and figured that with more Marth practice they would once again resume their domination of the country. Snexus 2 had the misfortune of being held in a comic book store in a very small 15x15 square foot area. It also holds the legacy of not finishing at the first venue and being forced to move to a hotel afterwards. Still, many firsts happened at this tournament, including the Midwest’s first shot at California might. The rules for this event were much different than the modern rule set. At the time, it was quite common to have most items on and full random stage selection. There was no neutral stage list. The random level affected the match significantly, “today, random stage was Mute City, Tims favorite. Its fairly close, he gets a giant shroom and wins. Second level Peach's castle I win. Third level, both on our last life at Kirby 64, he gets a giant mushroom, and wins. I'm pretty much crushed and in a state of shock.” - Ignatius Such occurrences were commonplace. Slob picks, as they were called, allowed the loser of a match to either change his character or change the stage, though the winner would be forced to remain as his current character no matter what. On the other hand, Team Attack On had become the definitive standard in the Midwest and was no longer questioned. Going in, Eddie and Eduardo, Team Blood, were expected to challenge Recipherus and Isai as the best players in the country. Since most tournaments did not make videos at the time, the players who made their own typically were expected to be some of the best as well, and the Champaign crew and Punch Crew both fell into this category. As teams began, the Midwest showed its teeth with Team Blood narrowly beating Recipherus and Isai for the teams crown. Behind them were the famed Puff Stuff, a double-Jigglypuff team with KishPrime and AOB which surprised many and were a strong team for another year, Joshu/Iggy, and Scamp/The Doug. Hail was entered in this tournament as Joshu and the Ship of Fools, from which the crew’s moniker was derived, but from this point on, Hail to the Chimp would be their official team name. With Team Blood’s victory, some started to sense an upset in the works for the Midwest in singles. The tournament proceeded to the final 12, but time ran short. The venue hit closing time and promptly shut down. Relocation became necessary. Cars caravanned across Chicago, even managing to scare one hotel into not offering rooms. SmashBroPro, in what would be his final major contribution to Chicago smash took control at this point and booked several rooms for the tournament to finish at another hotel. Stealthily smashers moved equipment and personnel into the hotel rooms, and about 2 hours after they left the first venue, resumed playing. All of the favorites were still in. California had three representatives in The Doug, Recipherus, and Isai, and the Midwest still had Eddie, Eduardo, Da’Shiekie, all of the Ship of Fools, and an unknown player in Smog, making his first tournament appearance. Recipherus had already beaten Eduardo, and Isai had knocked Recipherus to the loser’s bracket. Hotel rooms were packed full of people, as nearly everyone had stayed to watch the end. The first dramatic fight was summarized later. Quoted from KishPrime: “Since this was the Ship's first major tourney one of us were looking for a win over one of the Chicago big boys. In two incredibly close matches, Cubed won the first and Eduardo won the second. Cubed took Eduardo to Corneria for the final round, and the match went down to the last stock for each player, when Eduardo unleashed a 0-100% combo taking Cubed to death when he misses a tech.” This was the only major hiccup the rest of the way, as the big four dominated the bracket. Eddie and Isai made winners finals. In the loser’s bracket, Recipherus charged through KishSquared using a Starman to take advantage in the last round and finish him off. He dropped a round to Smog’s Falco after being hit with the Fire Falco attack on Yoshi’s Island, but rebounded nicely and took the set. Eduardo went through KishPrime without losing a round, and thus the first major match up was underway. While Eduardo was playing KishPrime, everyone gathered into the one hotel room that would play host to the last matches. Midwest pride rode high as Eduardo fought Recipherus, but the matches were one-sided. Recipherus won, giving the Midwest little to cheer for the whole way. His mastery of l-cancelling at the time was unparalleled and gave him an advantage over the slower Midwest players who were not used to the timings. He often was able to grab after l-cancelled fairs before his opponents could even get off their shield grabs. The finals of the winner’s bracket began, and while it was much closer than the other matches, Isai managed to oust Eddie. The end of that match was rather humorous, quoted by KishPrime: “This match will always be memorable to me because of Eddie's screams of "BARREL, BARREL!" and Isai's scream of "NOOOO!" when the barrel actually swung back and caught him. It did not work a second time however, and California's top 2 managed to oust the Midwest's top 2 in the first inter-regional Midwest tourney.” Attention to the finals of the tournament was less than the prior matches, but many still watched a great finals set. Recipherus reinforced his position as the top player in the country by taking two straight sets from Isai, and this great tournament came to a close. Top 5 1. Jeremy 2. Isai 3. Eddie 4. Eduardo 5. KishPrime 5. Smog

Teams 1 Team Blood (Eddie/Eduardo) 2. Jeremy/Isai 3. Puff Stuff (KishPrime/AOB) 4. Joshu/Ignatius In reading the responses to this tournament, it is quite obvious that there are still no established players. Excuses run rampant, and few victories are acknowledged. Unlike today, where it is well known who the good players are, every player that attended tournaments in those days felt as though the only way they could lose a tournament is if they had an off-day. Nevertheless, we see from here the same players winning consistently for quite some time from here on out, and this attitude slowly fades away. Videos of this tournament are still very available. The Punch Crew also put together a 3-clip montage of their trip that is very entertaining to watch. Inexplicably, after this tournament Chicago smash spiraled downward to the point that there were only 4-5 consistently traveling Smash players, Eddie, Eduardo, DJXXX, Snex, and occasionally Barogrei, a theoretical expert of the time who would often post long-winded yet enjoyable monologues. If you had the opportunity to play him, you might find yourself receiving one of those monologues during a match! For the next year and a half these 5 were the sole representatives of Chicago, and thus became known as the “Chicago crew.”

Snexus 2 Quotes “Our first Ohio tourny is next weekend (which i really wished had been before snexus, but oh well) so Ohio is finally coming together as a community, and Snexus was our first real MidWest tourny, so i am glad as a region we are starting to come together similar to the WC, EC, and Texas (which is a community in itself).” – PimpLuigi

“And truthfully i would have gotten 3rd at this tourney. And i say that because im an *******, and i want you guys to come out here and prove me wrong, but more because it's true. I mean i saw eddie at tg. I'm sure you've gotten alot better but you lost to isai? i mean that's pathetic.” - Sultan of Samitude
“The skills in the States have finally reached the point where Z canceling and wavedashing is much more than a gimmick and I'm not sure if I want to invest the time in mastering those techniques just to keep par with the course. That rocking chair seems mighty inviting...” – SmashBroPro

HUMOROUS SIDE NOTE #1 – “GO BACK TO YOUR BASEMENT WHERE YOU’RE BEST” http://www.freewebs.com/wearetheelements/snexware.html The Element of Fire from Wisconsin designed many t-shirts with GameFAQs icon Snex as the feature. They use many of his famous quotes used while arguing with the countless GameFAQqers that attempted to debate with him. Rumor had it that Snex brought the tier list to GameFAQs, but Snex refuted that. He was a primary defender of the tier list, and in this became one of the most hated men on GameFAQs. The infamy that he had at this time is almost unimaginable, as roughly one out of every 20 GameFAQs topics were devoted to asking “Who is Snex?” Reading these quotes now, it is a reminder of the old days when so many players used the argument that “if I could travel, I’d win every one of these things, because I beat all my friends!” Snex always had an answer to these claims, immortalized forever in these shirt designs (or at least till the website goes down). He continues to be highly active in the debate hall, though his tournament attendance has dropped off.

TG5 – A Brief Midwest Appearance – August 2nd-3rd, 2003 Tournament thread - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=25788 Results thread - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=29832 Token though it may be, Joshu and Eddie traveled out to TG5 to represent the Midwest on the West Coast. Eddie created a large amount of buzz in a money match before the tournament by defeating Ken, the TG4 champion and TG5 favorite in Ken’s only money match loss to date. This was especially noteworthy because Ken had already defeated who many considered the Top 2 in California, Recipherus and MattDeezie in money matches, though Isai had recently climbed up the power charts very quickly as he shifted some of his attention away from SSB64. The teams tournament had a bit of a surprise, in that Eddie and Joshu charged their way to 4th place behind some very solid teams, and ahead of the likes of Rob$ and Caveman who were also traveling for the first time. In singles Eddie was defeated by The Doug when a barrel materialized upon his head and blew him off a walk-off edge, even though at that point he was leading by a decent margin for a final finish of 9th place. Meanwhile, Ken quickly put an end to the buzz from his loss to Eddie by charging through the tournament and winning it outright. Joshu ended up in either 25th or 33rd place, which was not bad for an 80-90 person tournament. While TG5 a significant tournament for many reasons, I merely wish to address the Midwest presence for now and leave it at that. No other records of this tournament exist due to MattDeezie holding the information back for a DVD that never came. Quoted from marthrules: “1. Ken 2. Jeremy 3. Isai 4. Azen T5. Justin T5. Wes T7. Sam (i think) T7. Doug (i think) T9. Eddie

Teams: 1. Ken and Isai 2. Wes and Hein 3. Sam and Dave 4. (I think) Eddie and Joshu(luigi)”

Midwest Challenge – Birth of the Crew Battle - August 9th, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=29153 The tournament as a whole may not appear to have had a huge impact, but in reality this tournament was hugely notable for three reasons. First of all, this was the first tournament hosted by the Ship of Fools, who would become one of the premiere tournament hosts in the country. They drew in 19 people in their first effort. Second, this in essence was a dry run for the MELEE-FC series of tournaments, now referred to by the Kishes as FC0. After the amazing success of Snexus 2, they hosted it to see if they could draw the same number of people to South Bend for a major national tournament at an incredible facility in Trinity Evangelical Free Church, and while attendance was disappointing, it was not a bad first step for the time. Finally, Midwest Challenge was host to the first crew battle. KishSquared originally proposed the idea of a crew battle where groups of friends, which were now being called “crews” on smashboards with respect to the Punch Krew, would make up a team and try to work together to beat other crews. He told this idea to KishPrime late one night, at which point he laughed him off for suggesting that players throw themselves off the edge repeatedly. Because of this, the first crew battle looked a little different than most are used to. Each person in the crew got two “battle lives,” and the order and character of each participant was decided ahead of time. The Ship of Fools took on the combined Ohio/Chicago crew of Eddie, V, LazyNova, Camper Bob, and Snex. Unfortunately, due to the ruleset of this crew battle, it did not flow very smoothly. Iggy led off for the Ship and proceeded to defeat all four of the Ohio/Chicago crew’s members other than Eddie without losing a round. Because the ruleset called for an entire round to be lost to eliminate someone, there was no way to whittle someone down. When Eddie came in, though, still in his dominant era, he proceeded to take down every one of the Ship members, with KishCubed sneaking a round off of him, and finally the anchor, KishSquared taking the final round in a dramatic finish. It was very slow-paced and awkward, and many changes were still necessary, most notably the switch from a match-style to a stock-style crew battle system. “I loved the crew competition at the end. Yeah, next time we'll go by lives instead of losses, but it was still fun despite how long it took. I was just thrilled to be able to beat Eddie at the end when the Cube failed. Eddie, you're amazing, and I can't wait for the day I beat you in a bracket tourney.” - KishSquared Midwest Challenge provided the next forum for the Midwest regulars to attend, continuing to establish a consistent tournament scene with regular attendees. It was Hail to the Chimp’s first win as a team. A summarized version of the results follow, courtesy of Ignatius: “Teams: 1. Hail to the Chimp (Joshu +Iggy) 2. Snex and Eddie 3. Dan and Bob with the easiest bracket ever.......

1v1 1. Eddie, surprise there 2. Cube, this actually is a surprise 3. Squared 4. Joshu ( I think) 5. (Ignatius) ( I think)” Quotes: “Eddie, I've never seen anyone pull off 5 L cancelled short hopped slaps in a row before.” – Camper Bob “This was a very successful tournament-- good job running it Kishes; you should definitely make this a serial event. What I liked best was the round robin idea because it was a good way to warm up against the competition. It helped me in preventing bad character choices for the real thing. For example I played Joshu with Fox the first time and it didn't work out. In our real match though, Marth proved to be a much better choice, and although I still lost, it gave me a much better chance to win.” – V

HUMOROUS SIDE NOTE #1 – BEST OF VIDJOGAMER http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=29079 Vidjogamer had been around since near the beginning of Smashboards, but as many know, he was also very young. He regularly got into heated debates with the veterans of California, and in a final straw moment Mattdeezie composed the “Best of Our Friend Vidjo” post in the Melee Back Room, including this particular tidbit.

“next stop on our tribute, is the crouch cancelling topic. This topic was once dead. It was a two page rigerous debate on the effectiveness of crouch cancelling over 6 months ago. However, something was left out, a superb tactic that we all failed to miss. Lets hear it from the words of none other than vidjo himself. Quote: Originally posted by Vidjo just throw turnips untill he comes at you then give him what hes coming for.

BOOM! Whats he coming for Vidjo? A peach BEATDOWN, thats what hes coming for. Im appauld that you all missed that...I deem you all scrubs.” – MattDeezie

Yes, it was inappropriate of Matt to pick on our friend Vidjo, who was so much younger than him. He was only 14 at the time, and we all know now of his advancement since those days. However, traveling the days of years gone by help us to learn the lessons of the future. Congratulations Vidjo, this tribute is for you.

Asmogian – Ohio’s First Interstate Tournament – October 11th, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31229 The Asmogian tournament was hosted by the Columbus smash players. Fusegen, Smog, Supernova, and Vocal rented a club house in the woods that was the perfect retreat for Smash players. While Fusegen and Smog had already established themselves as solid players, Vocal was a smasher who had recently come onto the scene, and while he was not yet at the height of his game he would continue to grow from this point. Also, the Columbus crew, including Vocal, Smog, Fusegen, PimpLuigi, and Supernova took on the crew name of Equals D, continuing the trend of players banding together under common banners. The rules had not seen much evolution to this point in the Midwest. This is the first post yet in a Midwest thread regarding a neutral stage list of any kind, and the advice was not taken for this tournament. “Anyway, Smog, perhaps it is too late to make suggestions to the rules at this point, but I am all for experimenting with some of the ideas floating around about the no items and "sacred seven" stages only for the random stage at least. Actually, I'm a REALLY big fan of the 7 stages only for random Also, I don't like cloaking devices or stars. Especially stars. I laugh when people say you just have to run away from someone when they get those items so it's fair...yeah.” – KishPrime Later some of this comes into effect for Flame of Bowser. The first avatar match was held at this tournament. David Kirk, an Ohio regular for some time but one who rarely traveled, used the same Fox avatar as KishSquared, and was thus challenged to a match when Squared got confused over who was posting. Squared defeated Kirk in the Fox ditto, thus being forced to remove his avatar. Kirk was later quoted as saying “I don’t even play Fox, I just thought the icon was cool,” and jokingly called Squared a bully. This was also the first appearance of the team that would later be known as “Kishwho?” KishPrime and KishSquared played on a team for the first time with mediocre results, but with KishCubed as Squared’s regular partner they practiced little together until much later. Eduardo continued to not attend out-of-state events, and Eddie teamed with SBP. The bracket played out much as expected, and it came down to Kishwho? vs. Hail to the Chimp in the winner’s finals. Hail soundly defeated Kishwho? and then finished off SBP/Eddie to win the tournament in a closely contested set. Teams tactics were beginning to become more evident, and Hail’s trademark was first pulled off here. “I can't believe Iggy was able to pull off the infinite combo thing with Peach where I hold em and he downsmashes...I've never seen that get off, neato.” – Joshu Fusegen and Smog also started to show off their team, Team Xero, which would score several nice placings and be a strong teams threat before it was disbanded. As for singles, Eddie suffered his first bracket loss to KishSquared while experimenting with other characters for the first time, but that didn’t stop him from switching to Ganon and charging back through the loser’s bracket to beat Squared in a rematch and Joshu in two straight sets. Results are sketchy, but this should be close. Teams: 1st: Hail to the Chimp 2nd: SBP and Eddie 3rd: KishPrime/KishSquared 4th: Fusegen and Smog

1v1 1st: Eddie 2nd: Joshu 3rd: KishSquared 4th: Fusegen 5th: KishPrime 5th: V 7th: Iggy 7th: Vocal Eddie’s grip on the Midwest was still secure, and far from being broken. He was confident enough in his dominance that he continued to experiment with other characters until he would reach the loser’s bracket at many tournaments in the next 5-6 months, becoming one of the most diverse players in the Midwest. Still, it took a long time until he could fully remove himself from his Ganon heritage.

Winona Smashfests - The Minnesota Stalwart, SuperDoodleMan! – Late 2003 - Early 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33382 SuperDoodleMan has been around nearly as long as the boards have been up, and several times he attempted to grow a tournament scene in his home state of Minnesota. He was one of the video and frame count pioneers and is one of the first on the boards to examine the usefulness of float canceling (http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=29750). It took several posts with no response, but he finally lured in a few Smashers to play in some smashfests at his place. Eventually a core group of guys began to form, including AaroSmashGuy, Tunuva, and Chexr. The irrepressible Teflon Climbers and several of the other Wisconsin players ventured in for these events as well once their community began to grow.

HUMOROUS SIDE-NOTE #1 - THE MYSTERIOUS SHORT-HOP MOD As a humorous side-note, a discussion on controlled modification had been going on for some time, started by V. Many people did not see a problem with the basic controller modifications that were going on at the time, which was mostly removing springs in the L and R buttons. However, KishSquared singlehandedly got the “No modded controllers” rule permanently added to every tournament’s ruleset with his announcement that he planned on making a “short-hop” modification using skills learned as an electrical engineer.

“Current research level (and a good amount has been done) indicates that the project could be easily constructed with the ordering of a few microelectronics that cannot be bought at the local RadioShack (if they could, each crew member of the Ship of Fools would surely be armed with said ultimate weapon). Once proper resources are attained (time and money), development will continue, hopefully during Fall Break in two weeks.” – KishSquared

Few people could short-hop consistently at this time, and it was not an integral part of the metagame yet, but many tournament organizers realized the huge effect this would have and immediately banned all short-hop modding. Ironically, the short-hop mod never got too far past the alpha stage, and while it was indeed fully functional, KishSquared never actually incorporated it into a complete controller, nor did anyone else, as far as the community knows.

Gamejunkie – The Beginning of a Game Store Franchise – October 18th, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31252 While the first tournament announced to Smashboards was teams-only and didn’t draw much interest, this is one of the few game store tournaments that offered decent prizes and has had considerable success through the last two years. Smog and Fusegen continued to represent as the best players in Ohio at the time, winning the teams tournament, admittedly against little competition. “So, the turnout easily convinced my boss we should have a singles tournament, and prolly do it on a monthly or every six weeks basis. I understand the concept of "burnout"...travelling, fees, etc.” – GameJunkie And indeed it has continued to this day, generally populated by Ohio residents with the occasional Michigan visit. The Mid-Ohio Smashfest – Best in Ohio? - November 2, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31232

       The Asmogian Tournament lit a fire under the Ohio smash scene.  A tournament had finally been held, and now that certain Ohio players could legitimately claim they were good, many Buckeyes were ready to make the trip to wherever the next location would be to prove their own worth.  Arris hosted this tournament at a game store in central Ohio.

The GAMER (Game Addicted Melee Efficient Radicals) Guild was a crew based out of Northeast Ohio consisting of four original members. Omnigamer and Pyrogamer were friends that attended the same school, and Vidjogamer and Atmagamer were also friends at a different school. Through Smashboards, they found each other and began to practice together. Vidjo had been a member of Smashboards since January of 2002 and craved his first tournament experience, but their ages of 14-15 years old were a limiting factor for years. The tournament promised to have all of Ohio’s best present. The Case Western Crew, or as it had come to be known the CWRU (pronounced like crew) Crew, made the trip, and the Columbus smashers planned to come as well. Many thought that this tournament would be a great gauge of the best players in Ohio, but a car accident held up Fusegen, Smog, PimpLuigi, Vocal and David Kirk until the tournament was nearly over.

	Nevertheless, much of the Ohio camaraderie was formed out of this gathering.  After splitting matches in the tournament, the rivalry sparked instantly between Vidjogamer and Camper Bob, both feeling that they were the better Peach player.  Vidjogamer had an incredible streak of “zombie” turnips during these matches, pulling 7 in total and at one point pulling 3 zombies in 4 tries.  Camper Bob used this fact to dispute that Vidjo was anywhere near him in skill, and pulled down his win mostly due to luck.  Later, Vidjo would remind Bob of this after a tournament win by placing “I didn’t get a zombie this time” in his signature.  After this first meeting, it grew into a friendly situation, and the two of them still play today.

The late arrivals still stayed and played many friendlies with the rest of the Ohio community. They agreed to help each other grow as players, and united in passion to one day overcome Illinois and Indiana. Results 1. V 2. Camper Bob 3. Vidjogamer 4. Pyrogamer Flame of Bowser – Bowser Team?!?!?! – November 22nd, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31611 To fill in the winter season, Joshu decided to host a tournament in his apartment at Purdue. The only reason he wanted to hold this tournament was to have a small gathering where Squared and himself could play their super-awesome BOWSER TEAM. Even with these origins, Flame of Bowser was a critical pivot point in Midwest tournament history, and was one of the best attended regional tournament series ever. This was also the first time a neutral stage list was used. The stage list was reduced to 6 stages, and counterpicks were only available from this list. The legendary Bowser Team actually was played, and in fact it managed to steal 7th place, which was far better than anyone expected, save for Joshu and Squared who were disappointed. 1st Team Blood 2nd Grid and Cubed 3rd Fusegen and Smog 4th Puff Stuff 5th DJXXX and Da'Sheikie 5th CAHPhoenix and Iggy Fusegen and Smog were mastering their Zelda/Falcon team and using it to cause a lot of havoc. While the traditional Ship teams may have been broken up for this event, the field was still very strong. Of particular note was the travel of CAHPhoenix to the Midwest for this tournament from Alabama, forging a relationship that would come into play later. Due to its central location, practically everyone from the Midwest that had placed well in any major tournament came for this tournament, setting the precedent for the next two incarnations as the unofficial Midwest tournament headquarters. However, many were disappointed to find out that no matter what the location, Eddie and Eduardo still dominate the scene. Of particular note at this tournament was AOB’s Jigglypuff, racing to third place in a surprise after falling back recently, boldly stating that Jigglypuff is alive and well. The next few placings were spattered with the usual Kishes, Joshu, Iggy, and Snex, with nothing out of the ordinary. At the end of the tournament, the Kishes asked for the attention of the players there, and divulged to them a secret plan to hold a massive national tournament in their church gym. As one would expect, everyone agreed it was a good idea, and MELEE-FC was officially announced shortly thereafter. In hindsight, most on the Midwest players were unhappy with the six stage-only setup, especially since normal slob picks were still the common rule, where the winner of the first match has no chance to respond. While the neutral list for first round was accepted as a good setup, it was pretty much agreed upon at this point that having many stages open for counterpicks was a much better system, setting it up as what is generally seen by most players as a Midwest-only mentality.

Midwest Massacre – Michigan’s Talent Found - November 29th, 2003 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31660 Just a week after the Flame of Bowser tournament united the best known talent in the Midwest, but a year after any major tournament activity in Michigan, SUPERSAYIN held his own major that was drawing considerable attention from the local community. Some of the “known” players, Fusegen and Smog did manage to make the trip up to Michigan. 30 players in all showed up for this tournament. While Fusegen and Smog managed to take both tournaments convincingly, it unified the Michigan community in a way that they had never been before and exposed them to the rest of the Midwest community. Many of the Michigan smashers demanded that Smog and Fusegen continue to return so that they could get their revenge, and they actually did return several times after this. Among the new players “discovered” in this tournament were Nar, DaveR, Liptonbuddy, Dope, and Needle of Juntahh, who along with Montross and Mikey Lenetia would provide the backbone of Michigan smash for over a year. 1. Fusegen 2. Smog 3. Jv3x3 4. Nar

Teams 1. Fuse+Smog 2. jv3x3+Darren 3. Dave C+Dave R “yea, me, nar, and joel, first met JV and them. got our butts handed to us by Fuse and Smog, and got to see what real smash was like. learned about L canceling and everything.” - Dope

MOAST2, January 3rd, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=32190 Did any Midwesterners attend?

Wisconsin Smash-Fest! – Wisconsin, Brought to you by Teflon_Climbers! – January 10, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33018 Wisconsin had been fairly dead as a Smash scene. Other than brief rumblings about an group of Smashers called “The Elements,” who rarely traveled, the scene was basically dead. FC was announced as early as November of 2003, with no other competition in sight, and was poised to be the biggest tournament of the summer. Teflon decided to get some practice : “I'm planning all this for the up and coming tourney in Indiana :D. Don't wanna be caught with my pants down . Hope to see plenty of you there :D.” With typical Teflon smilies he welcomed all who would attend. Element of Fire, the only member of the Elements that traveled much, said he would try to come, and smashers began appearing out of the Wisconsin woodwork. Unfortunately, Fire was unable to come, but he attests that this was the first major Wisconsin gathering: “I'm so pissed that I'm missing this... the first big smash gathering in wisconsin and I have to ******* work....” AaroSmashGuy traveled in for the tournament and took it, establishing himself as the best smasher in the area for some time. Chexr and Teflon grew into the second and third best players very quickly. Afterwards, SuperDoodleMan and Teflon exchanged hosting duties for the growing community, which frantically began to prepare itself for FC as quickly as possible.

Game Over – At Least the Midwest is Good at Teams… - January 10th, 2004 Tournament - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31412 Results - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33339 The Midwest may have been dead for the winter, but the EC and WC were still planning huge tournaments. Both Game Over and O-C had about 80 people in attendance, and several Midwesterners made the trip out. Game Over was a huge tournament in many ways. It was the last major tournament to push for Team Attack Off. The fourth place team, Samus Connection, utilized this to the fullest, spamming missiles to no end, and for the most part Falco lasers and Samus projectiles dominated the teams tournament. As a result, this tournament single-handedly convinced everyone that TA Off was a universally bad idea, and it was never seen again. Amidst it all, several Midwest players still managed to get through the endless barrage of projectiles. Chillin and Eddie made for a great team before being felled by the Samus Connection in a close loss. Hail to the Chimp made a shocking run, at least in the eyes of the coastal players, to 3rd place through the loser’s bracket, using solid team play the whole way and an infamous Luigi misfire against Samus Connection. Fusegen and Smog sadly made only 17th in one of their last outings as a team. Otherwise, the usual suspects continued to shine. 1. El Chocolate Diablo (Ken/Isai) 2. H2YL (Azen/Anden) 3. Hail to the Chimp (Iggy/Joshu) 4. Samus Connection (Chu Dat/Jtanic) 5. Chillin wit a Villain (Chillin/Eddie) 9. Chicanada (Snex/Mike[Canada]) 17. Team Xero (Fusegen/Smog)

In singles play however, there were few highlights for the Midwest. Eddie, Joshu, and Ignatius all suffered early defeats in the toughest tournament of the winter. At the time, Eddie was considered the number 1 player in the Midwest and Joshu and Iggy both in the Top 8, so the performance was disappointing to say the least. Also, Fusegen and Smog, also very good players at most Midwest tournaments, barely managed to make any noise at all as they began to fall out of the scene. It set the standard for years to come that when it comes down to the elites, the Midwest never has been able to consistently place one guy up there. In other news, Ken was beaten for the first time in-tournament by Chillin, though he still managed to plow through the loser’s bracket as usual. 1. Ken 2. Azen 3. Isai 4. Dave 5. Chillin 5. Wes 7. Sultan of Samitude 7. Jason (DA) 9. Chu Dat 9. Mike G. 9. Kamaal 9. Mild 13. Joshu 17. Eddie 17. Ignatius 25. Fusegen 33. Snex 49. David Kirk 49. Barogrei 65. Smog In another humorous side-note, this was the “retirement” tourney for a number of prominent smash players. “Farewell everyone *too much people 2 type here* I will never forget about smash and wat it did 2 me. Finally the end has come for me so I wish all of u the best of luck in future tourneys. Ill end this letter or smash resignation by saying,” – IK_GOST “I'm done with competitive smash as well. I'll still play it just for fun and maybe go to a tournament, but I don't care how I place anymore.” – Chillindude “as for me quittin smash, well I'm definately quittin for awhile. maybe when FC rolls around, i will get hyped for it again and train harder, but right now school owns me.” – Mike from Canada “Most people have the idea that Game Over was the biggest tournament there will ever be, and everything will be downhill from here. I disagree. More and more people are coming out of the woodwork and learning to play competetively, and I think that competetive smash will do nothing but grow. The day I stop playing melee will be when Nintendo releases the next in the Smash Brothers franchise. Everyone thinks that people have learned to use their characters at their full potential and that there's nothing they can do to improve, but I think things are going to get even more competetive and I think that everyone has more room for improvement.” – Oro Obviously retirement didn’t pan out for many of these players.

The O-C – Eddie Travels West Once More – January 17th-18th http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=31663 While the attendance was mostly Californian in heritage, Eddie made the flight out to O-C to attempt to rescue the reputation of the Midwest. He came through with a fantastic second place in teams. 1) Ken and Isai - team name: el chocolate diablo 2) Eddie and Mike - team name: tip of the punch 3) Jeff and Rori - team name: shake your tail feather 4) Scamp and Matt - team name: DrMb 5) Alex and Brandon - team name: rookies 5) Andrew and Adam - team name: mean green

Additionally, Eddie managed to sweep his way to fourth in singles, behind only Rori (CauthonLuck) from SKYPAL and of course, Ken and Isai. There was little attendance from players outside the West Coast, but Eddie dominated nearly all of them in his run.

With Eddie’s finishes, the first era of Smash in the Midwest concluded on a bit of a high note, but his advances covered up an underlying problem. While the scene had come a long way, the long developed scene in California and the quickly growing pool of young talent on the East Coast seemed to be outpacing the development showed by other Midwest players, as evidenced by Game Over. As more evidence of stagnation, Eddie and Eduardo maintained their iron grip at the top of the Midwest, staring down from a plateau that few had reached. Their teams dominance had been shaken, but in singles they were still virtually untouchable. Was there any chance for change in the Midwest? Those questions would be answered very soon.

The Second Era of Midwest Smash In the second era of Midwest Smash, we see some of the first generation of Smash players begin to fade away, while others have begun to develop their skills to an all-time high. Newcomers found themselves front and center as they developed their skills far faster than the first generation with the wealth of knowledge now available publicly through Smashboards and videos. The talent discovered in this era, though unrefined, would fuel the Midwest to the present day of Smash.

Wisconsin Smash-Fest! – Wisconsin, Brought to you by Teflon_Climbers! – January 10, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33018 Wisconsin had been fairly dead as a Smash scene. Other than brief rumblings about a group of Smashers called “The Elements,” who rarely traveled, the scene was basically dead. FC was announced as early as November of 2003, with no other competition in sight, and was poised to be the biggest tournament of the summer. Teflon decided to get some practice: “I'm planning all this for the up and coming tourney in Indiana :D. Don't wanna be caught with my pants down . Hope to see plenty of you there :D.” With typical Teflon smilies he welcomed all who would attend. Element of Fire, the only member of the Elements that traveled much, said he would try to come, and smashers began appearing out of the Wisconsin woodwork. Unfortunately, Fire was unable to come, but he attests that this was the first major Wisconsin gathering: “I'm so pissed that I'm missing this... the first big smash gathering in wisconsin and I have to ******* work....” AaroSmashGuy traveled in for the tournament and took it, establishing himself as the best smasher in the area for some time. Chexr and Teflon grew into the second and third best players very quickly. Afterwards, SuperDoodleMan and Teflon exchanged hosting duties for the growing community, which frantically began to prepare itself for FC as quickly as possible.

Entrance of SHEP – January 14th, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33407 A greeting was issued from Hammond, a city in northwest Indiana, between South Bend, the home of the Ship of Fools, and Chicago, the home of Eddie, Eduardo, and Snex. “S.H.E.P (Super Hyper Edge Patrollers) We have Tourneys every Saturday we are looking for ppl who are good, we have good turnouts like 10-12 ppl who come. We want to play new ppl we're all 17-18 so if you think you are any good me and my friends are wating for your replies. We especially want to play Eduardo me and my friend Nate are both Marth players and we're really confident we would either beat him or we would give him a good match. Also KishSquared my Brother has probably the best Fox around and has won every tourney we have had so he really wants to play you. my aim address is xelno1president if you want to contact me, till then later.” – GOTS GOTS led the large group of smash players into the community, including Big C and a player named Wayne, who would eventually take the Smashboards name of Tink. The changes came much later, and the first ever SHEP tournament concluded as many would’ve expected at the time, with Eddie taking the whole thing. The stage was set for things to come, and Team SHEP would become a major tournament hub for the Illinois and Indiana smash scene. They held many small tournaments over the coming months, receiving consistent attendance from Eddie, Snex, and the Ship of Fools.

The Next Ohio Tournament (TNOT) – Joshu Wins! - February 7th, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=32679 Ohio had truly begun to develop a community of its own and crews in many areas were beginning to claim dominance, however unfounded these claims were. Omnigamer, living near Cleveland, and the GAMERs began to plan a large tournament to determine Ohio’s best once and for all. All four GAMERs at the time, Omnigamer, Pyrogamer, Atmagamer, and Vidjogamer planned for their triumph. Vocal had continued to grow in stature, practicing with Smog and Fusegen and picking up the Ice Climbers to add to his already excellent Sheik. Ice Climbers play was rather undeveloped at the time, and desynching was just beginning to be used by tournament players. Vocal managed to begin using this on a smaller scale even at this early date. Smog, always insisting that he only played for fun, still managed to win at tournaments with his low-tier character of the month, generally Zelda or Roy, and Fusegen’s Falcon was as good as ever. The triumvirate out of Case Western came as well, with Camper Bob continuing to pit his PokeFloats camping strategies against the competition, sure that he could prevail since he was convinced that only Eddie and the Ship had prevented him from winning a tournament so far. However, the plans for TNOT to become a “best of Ohio” tournament were thwarted by interlopers from Michigan and the Ship. The Michigan Massacre had pushed Michigan’s community forward in one huge leap, and many of these players, now friends, planned their trip down to Cleveland to see if they had advanced to the point where they could finally beat Smog and Fusegen. Joshu and Iggy, sensing only moderate competition and noting the absence of Eddie, also thought they could make a good showing. Having been part of the traveling smash scene for a much longer time, the Ship and Columbus indeed turned out to be more prepared. Joshu and Iggy took the team tournament with ease, followed by Vocal and David Kirk who had upset Team Xero. 1. Hail to the Chimp (Iggy & Joshu) 2. David Kirk & Vocal 3. Team Xero (Smog & Fuse) 4. Kenshin's ***** (Bob & Chris) 5. Joel & jv3x3 5. Travis & Brad 7. Team Badonkadonk (Omnigamer & Pyrogamer) 7. Vidjogamer & Atmagamer 9. V & LazyNova 10. Team Toxic Shock (Super Sayin & Dope) 10. Master Luigi & Jinx 10. Chris & Mike 10. Josh & Jeremy 14. Kurt & Falcomaniac 14. Sheep & Supernova Singles flowed much the same, with Joshu taking home the top prize for the first time at a Smashboards tournament. 1. Joshu 2. Vocal 3. Fusegen 4. Iggy 5. Smog 5. Camper Bob 7. Vidjo 7. jv3x3 9. Super Sayin 9. Joel (Needles of Juntahh) 9. Pyrogamer 9. Chris 13. Omnigamer 13. David Kirk 13. V 13. Falcomaniac 17. Sheep 17. Void 17. Supernova 17. LazyNova 17. Gaiagamer 17. SJH 17. Dope 17. Master Luigi 25. Atmagamer

We see that Vidjogamer and Dope were already impressing the top players of the time. "Dope, you're a Michigan kid right? Hopefully we get to play more.... You played Marth then Falco right? Good matches, I think you should've stuck with Marth though." - Vocal "Vidjo: Good golly, I was not expecting another good Peach outta nowhere. Very solid game, I was impressed" - Joshu

Jv3x3, as debatably the top player in Michigan, also represented as the top placer of their group in 7th. "jv3x3: Very nice Marth, you're another awesome player I wasn't expecting to be so good ^^" – Joshu Even though Joshu won the tournament, the results gave Michigan and Ohio hope that their communities were drawing closer to the behemoths of Illinois and Indiana, and looked forward to Flame of Bowser II as the chance to finally overcome the barrier.

The Mini-Midwest Massacre – Shifting Power in Michigan - February 8th, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=32574 “Another can come to the tourney from our crew, 'Dope'. ^^” – Needle of Juntahh This tournament almost didn’t happen several times. It was initially proposed by a smasher named FierceMelee, a smasher that has no other records attached to his name, after the Midwest Massacre to keep the Michigan scene going strong. After disappearing from his own thread completely and some minor chaos, Liptonbuddy picked up the mantle of tournament host and held the thing himself at the last minute after TNOT had happened the previous day. “Fierce I cant believe it took 3 months for someone to take over your board and the tournament.” – DaveR 8 smashers in all showed up, with most of the consistent names appearing, but most notable as the first appearance of the now legendary Dope in the top placements. While he had attended the first Michigan Massacre, he went largely unnoticed, but having played with Nar (A.HillsFinest ) and Joel (Needle of Juntahh) he made sure to make an impact on the Michigan scene in his second go-around. 1. A.HillsFinest (Nar) 2. jv3x3 3. Dope 4. Liptonbuddy 5. SUPERSAYIN 6. phatassesrock (DaveR) 7. Ace (my buddy Aaron) 8. Shadow Glare His Falco was the first to show its skill in Michigan, and he was a valuable addition to their community. Smashfests continued over the next couple months, as they prepared themselves for their grand entrance onto the Midwest scene. Dope never looked back and kept improving, while Nar maintained his own grip on Michigan for several months. Alabama Tournament – Some Random n00b? – March 19th, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33707 It started out with a visit from one CAHPhoenix, a fairly strong southern Peach player, to the First Flame of Bowser tournament, and continued with a visit from Isai to Alabama to visit a girl that played SSB64. The end result? A road trip from the Ship and a new entry to the scene...and the most recent test of Midwest ability against California power. The Ship arrived in Alabama after a 9 hour drive to find Isai and a player named Dave from Missouri, who had come all the way with Shotgun Willie, a man proud of his zero win tournament record, traveling just for the heck of it. Exhausted from the trip, they passed out, leaving Dave and Isai to play Falcon dittos for the night. Morning started early, with Isai and the Kishes waking up at 6 AM to get in some more practice for the day ahead. The tournament, however, did not go as smoothly as anticipated. Missing keys turned into a wild-goose chase around town, and an anticipated 40+ tournament attendance dwindled to 19, several of whom were primarily Soul Calibur and Tekken tournament players who were curious. Spirits remained high however, and all in attendance were enjoying themselves thoroughly. Once the tournament began, the Ship defended its teams titles with KishSquared and KishPrime pulling out the tournament over Dave from KC and Isai, as well as Joshu/CAHPhoenix in a RR-only tournament. 1. KishPrime/KishSquared 2. Isai/Dave from KC 3. Joshu/CAHPhoenix Singles began with a round robin, seeded into the tournament. With the lack of competition, KishSquared, KishPrime, Isai, and Joshu all earned 1 seeds out of their pools. As the tournament proceeded, the losers bracket came down to KishSquared vs. CAHPhoenix and Joshu vs. Dave from KC. Joshu had already played and beaten Dave, so he was surprised to find himself in a close battle. Later, he admitted he was fighting some random n00b. This random n00b, Dave from KC, with the Smashboards handle of Darkrain, was ready to make some noise. He finished Joshu and then CAHPhoenix in close matches, then proceeded to give KishPrime trouble before making the mistake of thinking that Fox was a Jigglypuff counter. While this is true in the modern game, at the time the Space Animal Slayer dominated and Darkrain’s run was ended. He made quite the impression that weekend. Sadly, no one from the Midwest were able to give Isai even the slightest challenge, as he went undefeated the entire time. “Impressions from the trip...Isai is just out there man, in a league that we're not at yet. But it's not like anyone else other than 3 people have kept up with him either, so it's not a big surprise. At least my friendlies with him Falcon-Jiggly were close. Darkrain is awesome, only two tourneys under his belt now and he's Top 15 Midwest material.” – KishPrime Darkrain, as we would discover in the coming months, was not just top 15 material but top 5 material, and this tournament was his first statement to that effect. The Kishes and Darkrain both went home after a fantastic weekend of learning and fun, taking home quite a bit of knowledge that would demonstrate itself in the coming months. 1: Isai 2: KishPrime 3: darkrain (Dave from KC -for snex) 4: CahPhoenix 5: KishSquared -Tie 5: Joshu –Tie HUMOROUS SIDE-NOTE #2 – SSB VIDEOS OF LEGEND As yet another humorous side note, Isai largely traveled to this tournament not just for a girl, but for a girl that played the original Smash Brothers, along with her friend Moogle. KishSquared took the opportunity to test his skill against Isai, and Isai demanded that videos be made of his playing since he didn’t have many yet to put online. We heartily agreed in exchange for the chance to play the Great One. In virtually every match, all of them 6 stock, KishSquared only managed to take 2-3 stock at most. He still receives comments on his videos ranging from “Wow, you really suck” to “Wow, you took 2 stock off of Isai?!” based solely on those videos.

BEEZO – WI/MN Preparation Continues… - February 21, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33465 The best of Minnesota and Wisconsin all came out for this one, and while the usual suspects reigned, a new champ emerged. Chexr was a quickly developing Jigglypuff player, and while he had always placed below his friend Aaron (AaroSmashGuy) before, a very good Ganon player, this time he got his revenge. Teflon continued to work on his Falco, one of the only Falco players in the Midwest at the time. “You guys are the best, End of file. Next time, I hope to waste you both! If I don't get that good, ah well. someone needs to stop your money making before you have to pay taxes on that,” Teflon 1v1's 1st: Chexr 2nd:Aaron 3rd: Teflon Climbers 4th: Element of Wind 5th: SuperDoodleMan

2v2's 1st: Chewy and Aaron 2nd: Element of Fire and Element of Wind 3rd: Super Doodle Man(UPB!) and Mark

BEEZO II – March 27, 2004 1v1

1. Aaron 2. ME! Yaay! Go me! *does the KIRBY DANCE ^^* 3. Chexryad! 5. Uber Poodle Boy!!!! 5. SlayerOfMyMom 7. Luke-***/Yoshioiiiiiii 7. Tizzuna 7. Element of Wind 10. Element of Fire 10. Element of Water 10. Marc

2v2s

1. Aaron&Chewy -- Team Chewy-toy-Kirby 2. Elemento Fire&Elemento Wind -- team too-good-for-water :D 3. UPB&MARC -- Super Doodle MEN 4. Yoshii&Tunuva -- Team we-should-make-our-own-crew-we're-really-cool team 5. ME&elementofwater -- Team NOISY-SO-NOISY-yo-MAMA-TEAR-DOWN-DA-HIZZOUSE!! 6. SlayerOfMe&Will -- Team I-swear-the-tourney-was-rigged-for-us

Show Me Your Moves ‘04 – The Definitive Midwest Tournament Series Begins – April 3rd, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=34169 The winter passed with little Midwest action. Ohio was starting to become more active, but until they were ready to travel AOB and the Champaign crew decided to host a tournament at the University of Illinois. The idea was well received and much of the Illinois and Indiana community responded. AOB made sure to attract dozens of local collegiates to sweeten the pot, and they attracted over 40 people for the event. While its humble beginnings were as a mostly local tournament, this tournament has continued to grow for three years and is currently the signature Midwest tournament, and will be celebrating its sixth incarnation this fall. It had been a long season of dominance for the E&E duo, Eddie and Eduardo. The Midwest had utterly failed to unseat them, and to see them lose at all in a tournament was extraordinarily rare. Were cracks beginning to appear in the famous Marth’s and Ganon’s armor? Could a new season of smash be beginning? Prior to the tournament, the first ever signed dollar money match was held between Ignatius and Eddie. Loser had to sign the dollar, winner got bragging rights and the dollar forever. Ignatius beat Eddie in this match signaling that perhaps change was in the air. The round robins also seemed to indicate that this was the case, with KishPrime, AOB, and Darkrain all beating out Eduardo, who was playing Sheik instead of his usual Marth, in his pool. Bruised but not beaten, Eduardo came out of his pool as a 4 seed. Meanwhile KishSquared was busy Bowsering his way to a 5 seed, while Eddie and Iggy were taking care of business as 2 and 1 seeds, respectively. All four of them were surprised and dismayed to learn that they had landed themselves straight into the same eighth of the winner’s bracket. Thus one of the hardest eighths of a bracket ever was held, and lessons about seeding were learned. Eduardo managed to rally over Squared, but lost to Ignatius in the next round, both going to the loser’s bracket very early. Eddie managed to avenge his signed dollar loss, and proceeded onto the winner’s finals without further difficulty. On the other side of the bracket, upsets abounded, but one of the 1 seeds, KishCubed managed to make his way to the winner’s finals. In one of the most memorable moments in Midwest tournament history, with everyone watching, KishCubed faced off against Eddie with the winner’s bracket on the line. Eduardo had already come back through the loser’s bracket to ensure that he and Eddie could take the top 2 placings yet again so long as Eddie won this match, but it was not to be. As the entire room watched, KishCubed’s Sheik topped Eddie’s Ganon, and Eddie smacked the large TV, messing up the image for several scary minutes. For the first time, Eddie and Eduardo would not place 1-2 at a Midwest tournament that they attended. For several minutes Eddie and Eduardo conferred, and after they played out their match in the corner, Eduardo advanced to fight KishCubed in the finals. In a recent change, finals sets were decided to be best of 5. The crowd watched in the darkened room, following every momentum shift over 9 long, grueling Sheik dittos, undecided whether to be excited or bored. Indeed, many complaints were heard afterwards. Alas, as close as Cubed managed to come, Eduardo still managed to triumph, holding onto the first place spot for the Chicago crew with a 3-2, 3-1 triumph. The first cracks had indeed started to appear, but it would yet be some time before the Chicago Crew relinquished their top position.

Flame of Bowser II: Ness’ Revenge! – The GAMER Guild Makes a Wave - April 17th, 2005 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33982 Again, the stage was set for the Flame of Bowser tournament to host the best the Midwest had to offer. Michigan finally brought their new talent to the rest of the Midwest for the first time, and the GAMER Guild also made their first journey out of state. The trash talking beforehand rose to an all-time high with the GAMERs forecasting a sweep by their crew and Michigan predicting a Nar victory. The Illinois and Indiana smashers were reasonably suspicious of their players being in jeopardy, and had added several prominent members themselves. The Champaign crew had expanded, adding NickB, a powerful Marth player, and Pete Chen, a Falco player, to their ranks. Their team, Team Ramrod, was also no easy out. Several new smashers traveled out of Ohio for the first time, their names being Wattyman and Mathos of the crew P.I.L. (Pain is Love). Vocal had grown into a force in Ohio, and Darkrain and his crew made the trip in from Missouri for the first time as well, though no one was aware of him yet other than the Kishes. M3D had recently moved in from Maryland and was set to make his first appearance in the Midwest. A famous promo video circled the web. This tournament was all set to be the highlight of Midwest tournament history, and it did not disappoint. 39 people were in attendance, less than Snexus 2 but of an infinitely higher calibur. The teams tournament was expected to be the most competitive yet, and sure enough, a shocking upset occurred in the fourth place match, with Joel and Vidjogamer teaming up to take out Hail to the Chimp. From there, KishCubed and KishSquared (Order of Operations, or OOO) were able to handle the Michigan and Ohio combination, but once again fell before the might of Team Blood. In singles, the drama began early but faded quickly the Round Robins. Eddie lost to Dope out of Michigan, as well as the continually improving Darkrain, only managing a 4 seed out of his pool after an unknown Mario player out of Chicago, BigDave, upset both Dope and Darkrain to take 1st. Otherwise, things went exactly as the Illinois and Indiana players predicted. NickB scored his first victory on the Midwest scene by winning his pool, and the Kishes, AOB, and Eduardo all swept their pools with ease. Meanwhile, none of the GAMERs even managed to post winning records in their pools, briefly silencing their excitement, and Nar, Michigan’s best player also could only manage a 1-2 record after he lost to SBP, who decided to come out for a retirement tournament (one of the few players to hold to his word). The brackets however, gave way to major upsets. Eddie continued his slow start by losing with his Ganon in the third round to Vocal’s Sheik, and Eduardo lost to KishSquared, again ensuring that they would not take the top two placings. AOB continued his hot streak, blazing through Darkrain into the winner’s semifinals before losing to KishSquared. Vocal lost a tight Sheik ditto to KishCubed on the other half of the winner’s bracket making it an all-Kish winner’s bracket finals and lighting up Ship ambition. On the other side, the GAMERs again went to the loser’s bracket early, and all of Michigan was out by the third round other than Jv3x3. In the loser’s bracket there was only one GAMER left, but he was not yet ready to go home. On one side of the loser’s bracket, Eddie had once again unleashed his Ganon after toying with other characters and was making his own way toward the end of the bracket. But on the other side, Vidjogamer, in his first Midwest tournament appearance, began working his way through loser’s after dropping an early round to KishCubed. One by one he played through opponent after opponent, finally taking out Jv3x3 in 13th, then Darkrain in 9th. Eduardo had played his way through the loser’s bracket, and found himself lined up against the young GAMER for his next round. Vidjogamer’s next match looked impossible to overcome. Everyone crowded around the television to watch what most anticipated would be the GAMERs’ last stand against the man who had never been eliminated by anyone from the Midwest. Eduardo’s Marth faced off against Vidjo’s Peach. The first round went back and forth, with many twists and turns. As the crowd followed every move, it became apparent that Vidjo was slowly gaining the advantage, as his crown edgeguarding, never seen before, was right on target, smacking Marth away from the stage out of his Up-B. After the loss, a shocked Eduardo counterpicked to Yoshi’s Story, and to no one’s surprise tore through Vidjo with an easy 3 stock. The final round came down to Final Destination, the stage Vidjo would become famous for loving. Vidjo proceeded to go ahead and stay there, controlling the entire third round by a close margin. With every Eduardo death the GAMERs went wild, and with the crowd in utter shock, Vidjogamer eliminated the tournament champion. Vidjogamer went on to lose to NickB’s Marth in the next round, but his legacy still stood. Eddie and Eduardo were in disbelief, and with the Kishes waiting at the end of the winner’s bracket, it looked as if their reign of dominance was at an end. Not so fast. Eddie continued to rage through the loser’s bracket, defeating BigDave, Joshu, AOB and NickB without losing a round. He now was guaranteed third place and awaited the loser of the winner’s finals between KishCubed and KishSquared. This finals set between these two was famous for over a year afterwards, and many tried to used them to show how a Sheik could beat a Fox. Most famous in these videos was the use of Sheik’s chain. Prior to KishCubed developing his incredible Fox edgeguarding techniques, he used the normally useless chain to continuously knock Fox out of his Firefox. During these long, boring periods of time, the crowd fell silent, other than Vocal’s singular proclamation, “This is painful!” After Squared reached over 160%, he would simply pull in the chain and land one decent hit. This was hailed as the pinnacle of strategy for a long time…but no one is really sure why. In any case, KishSquared still managed to defeat his amazing strategy and sent him down to face Eddie in the hopes for a rematch in the tournament finals. Eddie’s match with Cubed… Sadly, the brackets were done on posterboard and disappeared after this event, though they were reconstructed later. No one knows who made off with them, or if they were thrown out with the empty Kool-Aid bottles. 1. Eddie 2. KishSquared 3. KishCubed 4. NickB 5. Vidjogamer 5. AOB 7. Joshu 7. Eduardo 9. KishPrime 9. David 9. Vocal 9. Darkrain Eddie - Vocal KishSquared - Eddie and Eddie :/ KishCubed - Eddie and KishSquared Nick - Eduardo and KishCubed Vidjogamer - Nick and KishCubed AOB - KishSquared and Eddie Joshu - Eduardo and KishSquared Eduardo - Vidjogamer and KishSquared

Flame of Bowser 2 was the first appearance of both Signature Matches and the corollary to KishSquared’s Avatar Match, the No-Avatar match Signature Matches “Loser of the match up has to put the name/crew of the winner into his signature on the boards for a month, or as long as the betters make the deal for. Atma and I are changing our money match to a combination Signature/Money Match... so expect the words: ‘M3D / Famous Last Words’ to be in his signature come Sunday night.” – M3D No-Avatar Matches KishCubed had a mission. His mission: to remove the avatar of everyone on Smashboards. To accomplish this, he would challenge everyone to no-avatar matches. If they lost, they would never be able to use an avatar. His first target: Darkrain. The first no-avatar match went as planned, with Cubed taking two of three, but afterwards he appeared to forget his mission, and never challenged anyone to one of these matches ever again. He also was somewhat disappointed to learn that Darkrain had never used an avatar. However, to this day, Darkrain has held to his word, and uses no avatar.

Columbus VGames – The Disgrace of Pro Gaming Hits the Midwest The tournament was poorly advertised, as were all VGames tournaments, with no thread identifiable on Smashboards, but it still drew attention from the Gamers and the Ship. They met in Columbus for a showdown. The tournament came down to the two crews in the end, and after going through the brackets to the final Vidjogamer stunned KishSquared in a major upset. As the months went on, Vidjo continued to dominate in the matchup, but until then the Gamers had talked big with little to back it up.

Long after the fact, when VGames was revealed to be either a horribly conceived corporate venture or a scam from the start, the truth of this tournament was revealed. Witness this quote from Joshu. "It seems my plan to purposely lose to vidjo in the columbus vgames so that he would get mad when it died worked perfectly... WHO'S THE WINNER NOW VIDJO!?!? HAHAHAHAHA" – Joshu

Yes. Vidjogamer was pwned. We were all pwned. MLG Chicago – First Encounter with Ken – June 19th. 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=35286 Major League Gaming premiered at the beginning of 2004, attempting to provide an edgy college atmosphere with 6 games, including Gran Turismo 3, Soul Calibur 2, a football game, and of course, Halo. While Halo was an immediate success, attendance struggled mightily for the other games on the tour, and while they had initially resisted pleas from the Smash community for Melee to be added to their lineup, they decided to give it a test run at Dallas. The response was strong enough that they deemed it worth adding, and so MLG Chicago was chosen as the location to host the first ever MLG to give away prize money for Smash. To this point, the Midwest had limited access to the best players from other regions. While MELEE-FC was shaping up to be the largest tournament yet with substantial inter-regional activity, the prize money that MLG posted outpaced any independent tournament, offering up $1000 to the first place prize-winner. This prize enticed Ken and Isai to make the second trip by California to the Midwest. All the region eagerly awaited their chance for redemption from the terrible losses at Snexus 2, at least until Ken, the two-time TG champion, posted the day beforehand that he had chicken pox and would not be attending. Luckily, this was a joke, and competition proceeded. Even within the Midwest, excitement was brewing. Post Flame of Bowser 2, state pride was running high and touched off a brief debate over the best in the Midwest after jv3x3 started his own list that failed to reflect the placings at the tournament just 2 months prior. Dittos were still seen by many as a test of who was better with the character, and challenges ran rampant, with Jv3x3 asserting himself as likely the best Fox in the Midwest. KishSquared was interested, but his confidence was low after his excursion to Columbus. As for teams, Team Blood was still undefeated and were confident that they would defend the Midwest from the combination of Ken and Isai. “Jv, I'm all for Fox dittos (yes, I still stink at them)! As for "best Fox in midwest", I don't care, I guess we'll let the tourney placings decide that. Bleh, after the Columbus Vgames, I was certainly humbled to the point that I doubt I'll do all that well at MLG. Not that I'm not still planning on winning!!” – KishSquared There are few details available about the teams tournament. Many of the top Midwest teams performed as expected, but as the tournament neared its conclusion several upsets occurred in rapid fashion. Squared and Cubed, known as Order of Operations (OOO), knocked off Hail to the Chimp for the first time in-tournament. On the other side of the bracket, Ken and Isai dealt a blow to Team Blood, knocking them to the loser’s bracket as well, though it wasn’t without losing a round, inspiring hope that Team Blood could make it close in a finals set. From this point, the upsets dropped off as Team Blood beat Hail to the Chimp and Order of Operations in successive fashion. Against OOO, there was a rather humorous incident on Peach’s Castle. Both teams had managed to separate themselves and were content to sit on each side, hoping for the other team to make a mistake avoiding Bullet Bill. As usual, Squared and Cubed were screwing around, and in a terrifying second (for Squared), Cubed tossed a needle at him, giving him the 3% that now forced them over the wall. The yelling that occurred on-stage at this point cannot be accurately described. Eddie and Eduardo displayed their trademark teamwork, isolating them from each other immediately after their 1-2-3-Go! approach, and finishing them out the rest of the way with ease. The finals were not as dramatic as it was hoped they would be. Eddie recalls the finals, “In teams, i think we won one game out of the entire set. that's it. that was in the first set. they were decently close for the most part, but not really. they really controlled the games, and we were just trying to keep it close.” Team Blood was defeated for the first time, and Ken and Isai began their now-legendary MLG streak of wins. Teams 1. El Chocolate Diablo (Ken/Isai) 2. Team Blood (Eddie/Eduardo) 3. Order of Operations (Squared/Cubed) 4. Hail to the Chimp (Joshu/Iggy) 5. The Real Puff Stuff (KishPrime/Snex) 5. Team SUK (Kadian/Alex) 7. Team Bowser? (Luke/Luke’s Brother) 7. Team Ramrod (NickB/Chen) 9. JVV or Jv Does All the Work (jv3x3/Vidjo)

Singles approached, and lines continued to grow behind the TVs that Ken and Isai were playing at, all waiting their turn for a friendly. Many expected Ken and Isai to take the top two positions, but were still hopeful that the Midwest could defend their territory. After his dramatic loss to Vidjogamer at Flame of Bowser 2, Eduardo was also hoping to rebound into a more traditional placing. Surprising, a Bowser-only player was starting to make some noise in friendly matches. MLG Chicago marked the first appearance of GrabfestBowser, who most knew as Luke. For those who mained Bowser in tournaments, he became one of the most successful and sought-out Bowser players ever., and his videos were constantly watched online. Early in the winner’s bracket, KishSquared came up against Vidjogamer in a repeat of the Columbus VGames, and in continuing with his dropping confidence before the tournament he suffered another loss to the growing threat. An early fall to the losers bracket did not break his spirit, and he began to climb back up. He fought through Camper Bob before having to fight KishCubed who had just eliminated Vidjogamer. In another match between the brothers, KishSquared won and moved on to take on the one who had already declared his dominance, Jv3x3. Though he repeated that he hated Fox dittos, a Fox ditto it would be. The two flew around the stages in some of the best matches of the tournament, with Jv3x3 taking several leads, but watching them all disappear under a flurry of KishSquared’s attacks. In the end, KishSquared could not be denied his Fox title, and defeated his only rival, securing for himself the title of best Fox in the Midwest for the next year. Still, many agreed that Jv3x3 and Joel, who both took 5th, showed that Michigan would no longer be walked over in the months to come, and were starting to develop great players of their own. With Vidjo’s loss to KishCubed, Ohio suffered another disappointment as none of their players managed to advance past the blockade of Illinois and Indiana players. Vidjogamer had raised his own expectations after his outstanding performance at Flame of Bowser II, but even with his placing falling short, his continuous defeats of KishSquared showed that he was still very dangerous to anyone. Ken and Isai had now secured for themselves their placings in the Top 2. Eddie’s loss to Ken was close, but a “Ken combo” near the end of the set gave Ken the win. Next up were the final two Midwest entrants, battling for only third place, a showdown between KishSquared and Eddie. They played a very intense match on the big screens, starting with Poke Floats, which is now a trademark of KishSquared. He took the round against Eddie’s Ganon, and in growing frustration over his character’s limitations, Eddie decided to attempt to use his Marth on his counterstage of Fountain of Dreams. His secondary characters were not as refined at this point in time, but Eddie was one of the few in the country bold enough to use two characters in this time period. Alas, it wasn’t enough to top Squared who was on fire, and in two rounds, the invulnerability of Eddie was ended. KishSquared’s defeat of Eddie marked the first time that Eddie had ever been eliminated from a tournament by a non-crewmate from the Midwest. Many had seen his vulnerability growing over the past few tournaments, though a fair share of his losses occurred when Eddie was practicing only his secondary characters and avoiding his Ganon. The loss secured a third place finish for KishSquared, who went on to be predictably picked apart by Isai. The tournament was a radical one for the Midwest with far-reaching implications for state superiority, and the perfect setup for the biggest Midwest tournament ever coming in just three weeks. MELEE-FC loomed, and all waited.

Singles 1st Ken 2nd Isai 3rd KishSquared 4th Eddie 5th Jv3x3 5th Joel (Needle of Juntahh) 7th KishCubed 7th KishPrime 9th VidjoGamer 9th Joshu 9th Nick B 9th Camper Bob 13th Dope 13th Eduardo 17th Iggy 17th Snex

MELEE-FC – The First - July 9th-10th, 2004 Thread - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=32687 Results - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=39251 MELEE-FC was the first tournament in the Midwest to draw in players from every region of the country for a showdown in home territory. At its initial announcement, it was anticipated that it would be the only national tournament of the summer, and even the late announcement of TG6 pulled few away from it. It was announced as the tournament of fun, and the Ship promised nothing more than the most fun tournament ever held. While Snexus had drawn in players from California, FC added players from Texas and the East Coast, including representation from DA and H2YL for the first time in the Midwest. The original part of FC was the determination to use the full two days to run eight round-robin pools of over 12 people for seeding. These pools were the largest ever run for purposes of seeding. It featured the base of the modern ruleset with advanced slobs, neutrals, stage knockout, and open counterpicks that had been first tested at Flame of Bowser 2 and MLG Chicago. As a compromise for differing regions, it featured items in round robin play but switched to no-items for the final bracket. This was partially motivated by the elimination of several players by bomb spawns at the prior TG tournaments.

SMYM 2 – September 25th, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=41609 Marcus’ (Jblaze) first appearance 1: OOO 2: HttC (no one ever wrote down or told me the result) 3. WTA (jv3x3/Dope) 4. Ramrod 5. Team Blood 5. Puff Stuff SSA

WANT - Minnesota Grows – October 23, 2004 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=44155

Flame of Bowser III: Shenanigans! – Rising to the Top - http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=41987

TOE TO TOE http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=33869

SSA2

MLG DC – The Adventures of KishPrime - January 29th, 2005 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=46942

Gamejunkie February, 2005 – KY Crew’s First Jiano and Souroush made the trip to Gamejunkie for their first Smashboards tournament. At this tournament, Jiano was still playing Ganon, though this tournament led him to give him up for good. The Regional Crew Battle is Conceived – March 9th, 2005 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=49917 March had come and yet no tournament stood out as the go-to tournament of the summer. While Cyntalan Maelstrom had volunteed to carry on the TG series, he had not posted anything regarding the seventh iteration, nor had the Ship, still on hiatus, posted anything regarding MELEE-FC2. In an AIM conversation, Wes and Ken grew angry at the fact that, even with MLG continuing to grow, there were still very few people that were willing to travel out of their region. Thus they posted a thread declaring that finally, once and for all the regional rivalries would be settled at a tournament sometime this summer, most likely in July. The Kishes, in fact, had not completely left the Smash community, and had recently even been tossing around with Joshu and Iggy having another FC near the end of February. This post spurred KishPrime into action. Immediately he contacted Ken and Wes about the plans for another FC. Its central location and facilities had already been mentioned by Wes in the topic as a prime location, so it took little convincing for both of them to agree that the Midwest was a mutually agreeable “neutral ground” for the East Coast vs. West Coast battle, though the Midwest could also field a team. Soon thereafter, the announcement for FC3 was made, and the regional crew battles were included in the schedule. The initial response to this post was huge, as any opposition virtually disappeared. Immediately many of the best players jumped on board. Team Ben, who had already been trying to sell their tournament, Gettin’ Schooled 2, as the tournament of the summer willingly stepped aside in full support, acknowledged that the FC church would be more capable of holding the greatest Smash event ever. The Ship was immensely grateful for this selfless action, and later asked Team Ben to join the staff for the third FC tournament. Suspense was building for the ultimate showdown, a way to finally determine which region once and for all would be considered the best in the country.

SMYM 3 – Texas Invades the Midwest - April 30th, 2005 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=49521 Rob$ and Caveman had rarely traveled to date, only leaving Texas for the FC tournaments to this point.

The CGA Open http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=50209 1. Vidjo 2. Pyro 3. Skypal (Jon)

Smash 2v2 1. Vidjo and Bob 2. Joe and Drew 3. Pyro and Gaia

Getting’ Schooled 2 – June 25th, 2005

MLG St. Louis – The Last Stand of Joshu - June 25th, 2005 http://www.smashboards.com/showthread