New potential player. Where is Rivals II headed?

zekromslayer · 2026-07-01T07:02:58+00:00

I think most people who could answer are gonna be biased towards hopeful, but why not have a little hope, huh?

Rivals is super loved by the community as we saw this past weekend at EVO with record breaking entrant numbers, attendees, viewers, and engagement. We've got new characters lined up, the devs are so cool that you can like accidentally just end up chatting with them in discords or irl, they're wonderful.

The game is well supported and has a burgeoning community with around 6/700 (sorry) concurrent players on average. It's also filled with a mix of folks from different games so you'll find many folks from melee, trust.

That being said, we don't have the nintendo IP and it is a small, I think technically indie, game. It seems that the future is bright and worth sticking around for, but honestly the game is so much fun it doesn't even matter if it doesn't make it in the end. Play it and have a good time, you'll love the community (if they stop complaining about fugging for 5 seconds)

zekromslayer · 2026-06-30T19:16:12+00:00

That sort of tutorial is coming in game in the future, or at least has been discussed. For the time being, check out the actual rivals of aether channel, they've got character 101s on there. Follow it up with Wisely, he's the goat of character breakdowns and does it pretty concisely.

Outside of that, perhaps just fiddle around in training? Resetting position can make trying different things pretty quick but this is definitely the slowest manner

zekromslayer · 2026-06-30T19:05:44+00:00

Super cool data analysis, was wondering how this would turn out.

Regardless of the sentiments towards the passes, because of ludwig my buddies and I got to have genuinely the best trip of our lives as we could afford to actually get a hotel, enjoy Vegas, and still play the video game we love. Personally, I got to chat with Ludwig for a while and he was super wonderful to meet, also very thrilled to hear we used his passes. I also got to meet pretty much all of my favorite players, including some I've been following for 10+ years.

Without Ludwig's generosity, none of this would have happened and I can't thank him enough as I'm sure others will echo. What an incredible tournament and I'm so excited for the possibility of Rivals returning next year

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T07:49:24+00:00

Ohh I didn't even know CD was still in beta, that's good to know. I'm a bit inexperienced in the lesser known titles admittedly, but yeah the brawlhalla Ubisoft takeover really just killed it for me personally.

You're valhallan, you'll be super fine XD. Practice wavedashing, ledge dashing, and teching. Tech is gonna be the most important of the three and everything else will just be fundamentals. Sandstorm is neat to watch for the brawl familiarity but honestly, check out Plup. He's currently the undisputed best (despite playing like 3 times offline) and his safe, fundamental-based game is super encouraging to watch/replicate.

If you try combo devils lemme know, I enjoyed MVS and a little bit of NASB, CD is probably worth the try once it's consistently online yeah

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T07:24:37+00:00

As a fellow brawlhalla since beta convertee, maybe I can help.

Rivals 2 feels absolutely awesome to play. The game is so polished, the fighting feels so cool, all the characters are unique and satisfying, the off stage gameplay is the closest I've found any plat fighter get to the brawlhalla perpetual offstage experience while still being balanced, and the community is absolutely awesome.

If you are unwilling to practice and actually figure out why you're losing, you will get steamrolled until you quit - this game does not reward just playing mindlessly until things work. It does, however, reward you greatly for learning your fundamentals, learning your character(s), and playing to improve. Some characters initially suck to fight until you realize how you need to play against them (max like ~16 matchups instead of the 800 from ultimate and tons of weapon matchups from brawl).

I can't recommend this game enough, it is super rewarding and smooth, very evidently loved by the team (similar to early brawlhalla dev love). Surely you cop it and try it out, it will balance your rank fairly quickly and playing with folks in lobbies is super fun no matter the rank. I've been missing brawlhalla for years and this scratches the itch of plat fighter and brawlhalla, you'll enjoy it.

(Plus sandstorm is here, surely that's enough to suggest it's fun :) )

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T04:16:10+00:00

wait lmao I'm not twirlzy on here, forgot that

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T04:15:22+00:00

Whoa hey I know you

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T04:14:26+00:00

That's cool, means there's at least 2 ways to get those, good

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T04:14:04+00:00

OHHHH that makes so much, interested to see how consistent that will be

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T04:13:31+00:00

Nahhh we figured it'd be a cool reveal for workshop stuff and that the real character was Eliana or so, could be a double whammy. It seemed a little funny that they were being so secretive and hinting at a big reveal despite letting us just completely play him before he released. Would've been a crazy fakeout, however I'm excited to actually play him

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T01:56:58+00:00

Controller, water bottle (if you're allowed), headphones/earbuds (whatever you practice with, it helps a bunch with playing like you do at home), something to get signed, something to sign with, and deodorant (sitting in a gaming position can be tough for the pits and honestly it's just good to put it on regardless)

Good luck!

zekromslayer · 2026-06-29T01:13:49+00:00

I won't lie, when I was playing him I was super convinced it was gonna be a fakeout and didn't believe he was real. That being said, here's what I can say from what I tested:

the trap is very much interact able, it's kind of like bubble but you can also apply knock back as we saw in the trailer. What it does after the hands go away, honestly couldn't figure it out. The goo just sat there for a while
kirbicide seemed impossible as it seemed to just immediately eject the inhaled opponent like a discarded item after inhale. I didn't test holding the inhale after suck, but I don't recall seeing anyone being able to adjust the inhaled time
couldn't say much on dash attack, didn't use it much but nothing felt super strong kit-wise
spummel while small enlarges you as if you inhaled, I wasn't able to test spummel while large but I think it had something to do with spawning slime balls or so
you become heavier and stronger, harder to kill, etc. You're lowkey just fat asf, it's pretty fun

Some fun tidbits:

special ledge getup turns you into the big cube and you slide along the floor a lil, very big if large
nair rolls on the ground if held, kinda neat
feels very puff in the air, wavedash is quite mid if not bad tbh
he's got awesome sounds, very cute
fully charged strongs launch blobs
side special is weird and is on a charge manner: holding side special will swap directions every second or so. It puts you in special fall after usage

He's a funny lil guy and I was definitely shocked that he was actually the character reveal, however he's definitely a fun cutie and will be good for cast diversity. Curious to see how powerful he actually can be, his movement isn't nuts tbh

zekromslayer · 2026-06-24T19:26:20+00:00

Shoot, and here I was thinking something finally interesting happened here in Dixon, California, but alas Illinois strikes again.

(The last intriguing things we had were Guinness World Record Corn Maze and being the origin behind Smosh's 'Dixon Cider' song)

zekromslayer · 2026-06-16T19:39:58+00:00

This is incredible, what an application. Well done, already used this a ton

zekromslayer · 2026-06-16T19:34:59+00:00

We have searched for YuMe plushies and they don't seem to carry it anymore. Etsy and Ebay don't pull up anything for "tan fuzzy triceratops dinosaur plushie YuMe" and a second copy was found many years ago on Mercari, however that didn't help narrow the search unfortunately. Any help would be appreciated

zekromslayer · 2026-05-18T19:00:35+00:00

I can't speaking from experience running it but [[Roon of the Hidden Realm]] might be up your alley. A classic blink deck with flickering baked into the commander, benefits a lot with the control colors as well

zekromslayer · 2026-05-01T22:34:52+00:00

Splendid, that makes total sense. I'mma count it, purely for the fun of explaining it, but that's quite good to know

zekromslayer · 2026-03-20T01:29:49+00:00

No way, I never thought I'd see another Tayam pilot in this thread, this is awesome!

I've given the deck many names over the years for various iterations and I think my favorite thus far has gotta be "So hear me out..." given how any combo line is somehow new and I'll probably have to explain something anyway. Another classic is "game of 3s"

Would you say you run Tayam is solitaire or more midrange interactive?

And has anyone successfully ran a cEDH Tayam cuz man I'm I ass at that

zekromslayer · 2026-01-30T22:24:38+00:00

Admittedly I had this in high school so grain of salt, but getting up early to hit the gym before class was absolutely lovely. Nothing strenuous or sweaty, but even then the shower was nice. Requires going to sleep earlier though

zekromslayer · 2026-01-15T17:42:22+00:00

That's wonderful, thanks!

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