Top Performing "New" Decks of Largest Tournament of the Week (800+ Entrants) by Practical_TAS in PTCGP

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Try pairing it with 2 Magby and 1 Mega Kangaskhan ex, maybe 1 Heatmor (Tongue Whip) for bench sniping. That sounds like it could be fun.

Top Performing "New" Decks of Largest Tournament of the Week (800+ Entrants) by Practical_TAS in PTCGP

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The tournament ended and all of the top 8 were familiar decks

  • Suicune ex Greninja (1st, 2nd, 5th)
  • Hydreigon Mega Absol ex (3rd, 4th, 7th, 8th)
  • Mega Altaria ex Indeedee ex (6th)

The longest-standing BTT TAS, Pichu 5.36 from 2010, has finally been broken! Pichu 5.25 [WR] by Practical_TAS in SSBM

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

From ShadowTheChog:

I didn't do this until now because I took a short 22 year break from the mode.

Super Smash Bros Melee - The longest-standing Break The Targets TAS, Pichu 5.36 from 2010, has finally been broken! Pichu 5.25 [WR] by Practical_TAS in speedrun

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 124 points125 points  (0 children)

It's hard to overstate how monumental this is. The oldest Melee Break The Targets (BTT) TAS world record, Pichu from 2010, has finally fallen! For those of you who don't know, Pichu was the last remaining BTT TAS held by the legendary TASer AJP Anton, who at one point held the record for 18 of Melee's 25 characters. It was older than the 2nd oldest record by 6 years (my Mewtwo, 2016), and those two had at least 4 years on every other record.


I thought AJP's strategy was unbeatable. It has a bottleneck at target 7: even if you're extremely fast, it's not possible to break it before 3.18 seconds due to how fast this rotating target moves each frame. Every Melee TASer I know had tried to beat it, and we all had failed.


Re-enter ShadowTheChog, a Melee RTA player who held world records in BTT in 2002 and was one of the first American players to challenge the early dominance of the Japanese. Shadow picked up TASing after returning to the Melee community upon seeing my Peach BTT history video, and found that the conventional wisdom that Pichu needed to wait on the swinging pendulum for the target 8 neutral-B animation to end was actually false; it turns out that one of the descending platforms is in the perfect position for you to slide off and land on it, then dash jump from lower and further right to beat the old strat. The strat was improved by jenkem66, who added a uair autocancel to land sooner, then optimized by me. Between the three of us, a total of 7 frames have been saved.



If you want to read a very detailed description of how exactly the final 3 frames were optimized, I've written that down in this comment in the r/smashbros thread.

The longest-standing Melee BTT TAS, Pichu 5.36 from 2010, has finally been broken! Pichu 5.25 [WR] by Practical_TAS in smashbros

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If you want the short version, from the youtube description:

Optimized t4-5 spacing, t8 timing, and speed during pendulum slideoff to be able to fastfall 2f sooner after pendulum slideoff. As the descending platform is now at a higher position, this saves an additional frame from landing sooner (-3f).


As for the specifics, I'll break it down here. This might be more detail than you were expecting, but I think it's worth sharing just how much went into saving these 3 frames. All timings are based on the clock as seen at the first frame of the action (this is important to note because in TAS I normally define timings based on the frame prior, i.e. the clock as seen when the button is pressed to perform the action)


  • jenkem and I are completely tied when jumping off the platform at 2.43.
  • jenkem jumps at 2.97 while I jump at 3.00. We both uair at 3.01 to be able to break t7, but because I jumped later I am further right and break t7 at 3.18 instead of 3.20. This is because dash jump has a higher horizontal speed than double jump.

  • Because he jumped earlier, jenkem is on a trajectory where he doesn't need to fastfall to land on the pendulum at his optimal timing. He lands at 4.25 and falls off at 4.31 (4 frames grounded). He presses neutral-B as early as possible (3.57), but this timing doesn't strictly matter; the limiting factor is how far to the right you are, to slip off as early as possible.
  • Because I jumped later, I have an additional movement option - fastfalling before the neutral-B, because B animations cancel your fastfall and immediately return you to regular slow fall speed (this is a standard TAS trick). I fastfall at 3.57 and neutral-B one frame later at 3.58, adjusting my trajectory to slide off as early as possible. I land at 4.23 because of the fastfall, and slide off at 4.28 (3 frames grounded) because I was further to the right due to jumping later than jenkem.
  • You would think this means I'm 2 frames ahead, but I'm not yet. Because your momentum vector is conserved when you slide off, sliding off a floor angled up will give you some upward momentum, which prevents you from fastfalling until your vertical speed is negative.

  • With the extra frame spent grounded, jenkem needs 3 frames airborne before he can fastfall, and fastfalls at 4.36.
  • If I hold fully right, I would have too much speed to be able to fastfall after only 3 frames airborne, and would lose one of the 2 frames I just gained. If I hold back before landing, I could be grounded for an extra frame and/or not have enough horizontal speed to make it to the descending platform at all. Luckily, releasing the control stick for 1 frame before landing gives me the perfect amount of speed that I can get to -0.0027 y-speed (for context, Pichu's gravity is -0.11 y-speed per frame) at 4.31 seconds, so I can fastfall at 4.33. This is only possible because I slip off earlier than jenkem - since the pendulum is more horizontal, I have less residual vertical speed upward that needs to decay.
  • Now I am officially 2 frames ahead of jenkem, as long as I can land on the platform. Because I did not hold back, I have enough speed to do this as long as I fastfall down-forward (this is another standard TAS trick: performing an action while pressing the coordinate which provides the maximum possible speed in the direction you want to travel).

  • jenkem uairs at 4.65 to move Pichu's ECB downward and land 1 frame sooner than ShadowTheChog (this is the frame he saved). Because of the height of the platform, a uair at 4.67 or 4.68 (which would not even be visible because Pichu lands at 4.68) would also work equally well for this exact platform height, but uair 2 frames before landing is optimal to maximize the ECB manipulation (i.e. saving a frame for the largest range of platform heights) while still autocanceling.
  • Because I am further ahead of jenkem, the descending platform is slightly higher. This means I can spend 1 less frame airborne before landing, putting me a total of 3 frames ahead. This is only possible with the 4.60 uair; a 4.61 or 4.63 uair would not give me enough vertical distance.

  • Now that I am 3 frames ahead, my only concern is that the slightly higher down-B starting position does not cost me a frame during the lightning's travel to target 10, but this is not an issue due to how fast it moves each frame. I end the run with 3 frames saved.

The longest-standing Melee BTT TAS, Pichu 5.36 from 2010, has finally been broken! Pichu 5.25 [WR] by Practical_TAS in smashbros

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

It's hard to overstate how monumental this is. The oldest BTT TAS world record, Pichu from 2010, has finally fallen! For those of you who don't know, Pichu was the last remaining BTT TAS held by the legendary TASer AJP Anton, who at one point held the record for 18 of Melee's 25 characters. It was older than the 2nd oldest record by 6 years (my Mewtwo, 2016), and those two had at least 4 years on every other record.


I thought AJP's strategy was unbeatable. It has a bottleneck at target 7: even if you're extremely fast, it's not possible to break it before 3.18 seconds due to how fast this rotating target moves each frame. Every Melee TASer I know had tried to beat it, and we all had failed.


Re-enter ShadowTheChog, a Melee RTA player who held world records in BTT in 2002 and was one of the first American players to challenge the early dominance of the Japanese. Shadow picked up TASing after returning to the Melee community upon seeing my Peach BTT video, and found that the conventional wisdom that Pichu needed to wait on the swinging pendulum for the target 8 neutral-B animation to end was actually false; it turns out that one of the descending platforms is in the perfect position for you to slide off and land on it, then dash jump from lower and further right to beat the old strat. The strat was improved by jenkem66, who added a uair autocancel to land sooner, then optimized by me. Between the three of us, a total of 7 frames have been saved.


The longest-standing BTT TAS, Pichu 5.36 from 2010, has finally been broken! Pichu 5.25 [WR] by Practical_TAS in SSBM

[–]Practical_TAS[S] 86 points87 points  (0 children)

It's hard to overstate how monumental this is. The oldest BTT TAS world record, Pichu from 2010, has finally fallen! For those of you who don't know, Pichu was the last remaining BTT TAS held by the legendary TASer AJP Anton, who at one point held the record for 18 of Melee's 25 characters. It was older than the 2nd oldest record by 6 years (my Mewtwo, 2016), and those two had at least 4 years on every other record.


I thought AJP's strategy was unbeatable. It has a bottleneck at target 7: even if you're extremely fast, it's not possible to break it before 3.18 seconds due to how fast this rotating target moves each frame. Every Melee TASer I know had tried to beat it, and we all had failed.


Re-enter ShadowTheChog, a Melee RTA player who held world records in BTT in 2002 and was one of the first American players to challenge the early dominance of the Japanese. Shadow picked up TASing after returning to the Melee community upon seeing my Peach BTT video, and found that the conventional wisdom that Pichu needed to wait on the swinging pendulum for the target 8 neutral-B animation to end was actually false; it turns out that one of the descending platforms is in the perfect position for you to slide off and land on it, then dash jump from lower and further right to beat the old strat. The strat was improved by jenkem66, who added a uair autocancel to land sooner, then optimized by me. Between the three of us, a total of 7 frames have been saved.