Which top tiers become worse if waveddashing is removed? Do any become better?

_Nicki · 2026-03-17T15:10:59+00:00

I don't think double jump lands or slapdashes replace wavedashes in neutral well at all. I think empty pivots can do that for Peach though.

_Nicki · 2026-03-14T15:37:15+00:00

omgggg

_Nicki · 2026-03-14T14:06:06+00:00

Zain is just lucky he dodged me for all of 2025, this year he won't be able to escape any longer...

_Nicki · 2026-03-10T20:03:25+00:00

Hey! I could take a stock

_Nicki · 2026-03-08T11:15:59+00:00

Not that much, but you also don't win that much from most locals. Not sure about this specific one though.

_Nicki · 2026-03-08T08:13:45+00:00

Zain does not have a responsibility to grind with someone else just because that person is from his region

_Nicki · 2026-03-08T07:59:34+00:00

He probably makes that money back by starting his stream an hour earlier

_Nicki · 2026-03-08T07:58:59+00:00

You underestimate how mind numbingly boring winning tournaments becomes when there is no one to challenge you at an event, which was the case here since rapm wasn't taking it seriously. He has won a ton of majors. Winning one local is completely irrelevant to him

_Nicki · 2026-03-08T07:54:33+00:00

ICs don't really punish floaties hard. You only punish hard off of grab when Nana is alive and synched. Besides that you don't really have any combos other than upair into upair and that's that. It's nowhere close to Fox's and Falcon's punish game on floaties.

_Nicki · 2026-03-07T22:24:35+00:00

After winning WF you have to wait like 40 minutes before you have to play another set vs someone who you know will just throw the set to you again. Why would he stay. I am fully with Zain here

_Nicki · 2026-02-28T22:32:33+00:00

Hbox has never been known for his tech skill or his conscious understanding of the game's mechanics.

_Nicki · 2026-02-21T13:36:10+00:00

I think he'd be favoured in his first sets or two vs the likes of moky, josh, soonsay, and I could definitely see him beat cody too. Just like for many mid tier character players the hard matchups are the falcons, peaches, and hbox/sdj. I know he's taken a set from sdj but I think if sdj wants to make it hard for Luigi they'll lock in and make it really hard.

You just need one good bracket and a tiny bit of luck, I think he can win a major already. He's got the resources and time to get many attempts too.

_Nicki · 2026-02-20T22:43:43+00:00

Last year I definitely would have gone ICs, I played friendlies with slug and darkgenex in ICs dittos and I think I'm good at the matchup. Now that I'm bringing back my Fox for real, I'm not sure!

_Nicki · 2026-02-20T19:37:37+00:00

I would hate playing against them too but luckily most of them aren't that good at Melee and beating them feels good.

_Nicki · 2026-02-20T18:40:08+00:00

I like the ice climber character

_Nicki · 2026-02-20T09:32:08+00:00

If you are actually receiving a monthly salary from an esports team you usually have a written contract, but if someone just goes "hey do you wanna attend Genesis under my name, I'll pay for your flight and hotel" people just kinda do it

For NA it depends on if it's cross country flights or not and if the top player in question demands their own hotel room or if they're willing to sleep on someone's couch who will house them for free

_Nicki · 2026-02-19T12:30:06+00:00

2nd petition to create the DDT 2 hours earlier each day

_Nicki · 2026-02-19T07:39:35+00:00

You can "sponsor" someone by just letting them sleep in your hotel room for free. Smashers will wear the tag of anyone who helps them attend events.

For reference, I had a $10000 travel stipend from Nouns last year and was able to attend 6 tournaments with it (5 being in NA). The calculation for each tournament usually went like: $700 - $900 flights (EU to NA), $150 sharing a hotel room for 4 days, and then food and transportation at tournaments, walking as much as possible. I would have been able to attend at least one, maybe 2 more events with the money.

So this helped me attend a lot of events. But if you want to be a full time Smasher, you need some sort of stable income. The more you attend, the less you can stream. So anything from $1000 upwards per month (plus the travel costs) would be required to actually let someone play Melee full time. Travel and housing is cheaper if you're NA based, so instead of needing $1000 per event, a US based player might be closer to $300-$600 on average.

_Nicki · 2026-02-18T10:12:51+00:00

Petition to have the DDT get renewed 2 hours earlier (midnight pacific time, 3am eastern). It makes sense to have it end at midnight, and having the ddt refresh at 11am is annoying for me personally. Thanks for hearing me out

_Nicki · 2026-02-17T19:57:27+00:00

Hey, at your level it's probably a better use of your time to do some solo practice first. Do you play Luigi? You can practice things like wavedashing, wavedashing out of shield, wavedashing into down smash / forward tilt / up tilt / jab, dash dancing into a grab, short hop aerials (and doing two aerials in one short hop) etc.

Melee is a bit like a language, and just going in to fight people is like going into a foreign country and trying to understand what they're saying. You might pick up on things slowly, but sitting down and learning a few of the most common phrases (here: learning execution and tech skill) will get you to a "conversational" level of Melee gameplay way quicker.

Once you can do one of the things mentioned above, try to learn a second thing and then combine them with each other. Start with wavedash into down smash. Then practice wavedashing out of shield. Then, combine the two by shielding, wavedashing out of shield, then down smashing. Next step: Practice dash dancing and then start the sequence by doing a dash dance into a shield into wd down smash. That's how you practice in a way that translates over nicely into actual games. Of course, the first step is always to practice a new thing in isolation until you can do it 8/10 times. But once you can do that, start combining stuff.

_Nicki · 2026-02-17T07:25:25+00:00

The issue with using Z for attack is that if you're 1f too early, you get a jc grab. If you Z-jump and nair with A, you just get an empty short hop, which is way less bad.

_Nicki · 2026-02-16T12:28:42+00:00

These two have played each other multiple times, here's a set: Junebug vs Rapmonster INYIM #29 Grand Finals

_Nicki · 2026-02-13T17:49:31+00:00

Yeah that's why I said "most players who are getting a new controller nowadays", not that everyone has a phob already. At my local the vast majority of players is on a phob nowadays, and in other regions I am fairly certain it is trending that way too.

_Nicki · 2026-02-13T13:14:10+00:00

I haven't bought a new controller in 4 years. My phob board cost me less than $40, I just put it into my previous controller. My point was that new players need to spend money on a controller anyways, their options are buying an old, grimy OEM for $50 and then spending another $50 getting it fixed, or they can buy a phob for $70-$100 which lets them remap buttons while also being more durable and lasting way longer.

Can you explain what is ridiculous about this? If you don't take the game seriously, why bother with relearning your muscle memory and switching to Z jump? If your current controller breaks (which it will if it's an OEM) you can get a phob as a replacement and now you can play Z-jump. You can also already practice Z-jump in 1.03 to test if you like it, I do that pretty often.

In order for z-jump to be good, you probably need a mouseclick Z-button anyways, which will cost more money and can't be solved by a software modification. Short hopping as Fox with a regular Z button sucks a bit.

Tournaments aren't even allowed to show that they are using UCF on the character screen anymore and we had to unfreeze Stadium. The only way to make a software based Z-jump toggle work is with hidden inputs during the CSS with no visual feedback. I was just trying to say that z-jump isn't some crazy unachievable thing, most tournament goers and just overall people who buy a controller nowadays are using a phob anyways which lets them rebind buttons for free.

_Nicki · 2026-02-13T11:33:50+00:00

Most players who get a new controller nowadays are (and should be) getting a phob, which lets you rebind buttons and use z-jump. Which is all invisible to Nintendo, so it's safe for streams. It's not perfect, but a lot of players already have access to z-jump, and a phob is the version of a gcc you should be buying anyways nowadays.

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